Asia-Pacific

Suspicious vehicle in latest NYC bomb scare deemed safe

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-05-14 15:28

NEW YORK - A suspicious vehicle with gas canisters inside was deemed harmless early Friday and an all-clear was given in the latest bomb scare to hit New York City since a failed car bomb attempt on Times Square two weeks ago.

Emergency personnel, including bomb squad agents armed with a robot, were dispatched to the scene, but nothing suspicious was found in the 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera that was parked outside the New York headquarters of Con Edison, the American electric utility, near the Union Square.

Police told a Xinhua photographer at the scene that the area was safe.

A pedestrian saw two gas canisters inside the car at around 10 p.m. local time Thursday (0300 GMT Friday) and called police.

The busy area of East 14th Street and Irving Place was ordered evacuated as a precaution as bomb squad agents worked at the scene, a Fire Department (FDNY) spokesman told Xinhua.

Firefighters were called to the scene just north of the intersection, of East 14th Street and Irving Place, outside the Con Edison headquarters, at 4 Irving Place, in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, said the spokesman.

Upon inspection of the car, they called additional units including an FDNY hazardous material unit and the police bomb squad because of what looked like two containers of gasoline in the back of the vehicle.

After the bomb squad arrived, firefighters moved their command post further north on Irving Place to East 17th Street and called for two additional ladder companies, but told firefighters to park their trucks on Third Avenue, a block away from the suspicious vehicle.

A spokesman for New York University (NYU) told Xinhua that two dormitories, University and Palladium halls with more than 1,000 mostly undergraduate students, were evacuated.

The NYU dormitories are located across 14th Street from Con Edison on the south side of the street.

A Con Edison spokeswoman told Xinhua its headquarters building was emptied.

There were no reports of injuries.

The Associated Press quoted police as saying that authorities have located the vehicle's owner, who said the gas cans in the car were for lawn-mowers and that he parked the car in the area because he was attending a concert nearby.