Police have removed a suspicious device from a Manhattan location four blocks from the site of an explosion that injured more than two dozen people.
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People look on as the police, fire department and other first responders work near an alleged explosion on West 23rd Street on September 17, 2016, in NY.
“Injuries are significant but none of the injured are likely to die”, NY mayor Bill de Blasio said after the blast had rocked city streets, producing a wall of flame that sent people “running for their lives”.
The explosion comes just hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey town, shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity race nearby.
Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries.
But he said: “There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection”. CNN and ABC television said an apparent pressure cooker device was also found at 27th Street.
The CCTV shows people calmly walking along the pavement in the Chelsea district of Manhattan before an explosion rocks the area.
CBS News in NY is reporting that the exact nature of the incident is unclear, but their sources are saying the explosion occurred in a large trash container, such as a Dumpster.
New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should “expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue” due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area. According to Sputnik International, the blast is now under investigation and the authorities are also considering the possibility that construction explosives may have accidentally caused the incident.
A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that a second device officers are investigating a few blocks from the scene of a Manhattan explosion appears to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. New York City firefighters stand near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 17, 2016.
The law enforcement official also said that the explosion appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building.
New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill (right) and Mayor Bill de Blasio walk into a press conference as police, firefighters and emergency workers gather at the scene of an explosion in Manhattan on September 17, 2016 in New York City. Police say more than two dozen people were injured in the explosion Saturday night.
Police and firefighters are at the scene of a possible explosion in New York City, and authorities say 25 people suffered minor injuries.
NY officials said the incident was not due to a gas leak, as some initial reports had suggested. No injuries were reported in the New Jersey blast. The 26-year-old says she heard and felt a blast.
No information about injuries or about the extent of the damage was immediately available.
“It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums”, she said.
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Democratic rival Hillary Clinton made a statement on her campaign plane on the ground in NY, saying she had been briefed on “the bombings in NY and New Jersey”. “It wasn’t like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet”. We’ll move quickly to correct the record and we’ll only point to the best information we have at the time.
