A car bomb has been found in New York City’s Time Square, prompting US police to evacuate thousands of people from the area.
Michael Bloomberg, the city’s mayor, said the bomb, which failed to go off, was homemade and “looked amateurish”.
“We are very lucky. Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers, we avoided what could have been a very deadly event,” he said.
Bloomberg also said that “we have no idea who did this and why”.
Bomb-squad staff were deployed in busy square in the heart of Manhattan late on Saturday and police shut down several streets after a street vendor alerted police of “an unoccupied suspicious vehicle”.
‘Smell of gun powder’
Bloomberg said the police then observed that the car had smoke emerging from
vents near the back seat and smelled of gun powder.
There were reports of a small flash and popping sounds also coming from the car.
The New York Times newspaper reported that a federal official said the incident was not considered a terrorist threat.
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from Manhattan, said that while the square was shut down, life was going on as usual in areas nearby.
“New Yorkers have lived through many scares,” she said.
“The SUV was a Nissan Pathfinder with licence plates from the state of Connecticut. The plates were actually traced and found to belong to another vehicle so obviously investigation is still going on.”
A statement issued by the White House said the New York police department had done “excellent work” in responding to the incident.
Unconfirmed reports said someone had been seen running from the car.
The vehicle had been parked close to a theatre on the corner of 45th Street and Seventh Avenue showing a production of The Lion King.
Times Square is one of the city’s most high-profile attractions and police are deployed there in large numbers.
In December they closed the area while inspecting a van at first feared to contain a bomb, but which turned out to be carrying nothing dangerous.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies