2023-11-22 22:36:00
Two people died Wednesday following a vehicle explosion at a border bridge between Canada and the United States, near Niagara Falls, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau describing the situation as ” very serious” without saying whether he favored the track of “terrorism” or the accident.
“The situation is obviously very serious at Niagara Falls. A vehicle exploded at the Rainbow Bridge,” explained the head of the Canadian government to Parliament.
“There are still a lot of questions and we are trying to get answers as quickly as possible,” he added.
The White House said it had informed President Joe Biden of the explosion.
The US city of Niagara Falls said on its Facebook page that the Rainbow Bridge is closed “until further notice.”
A witness, interviewed by CBS, said he saw a car “fly away at more than 100 miles per hour (160 km/h)” in the possible effect of an explosion and then saw a ” fireball” on the bridge.
“Whenever an infrastructure as important to Canada and the United States, as a border crossing, is the site of this type of violent event, it is a source of concern for the governments” of both country, added Dominique LeBlanc, Canadian Minister of Public Safety.
But he refused to “speculate on the origin” of the explosion which killed two people according to American media like CNN.
On the American side, the federal police (FBI) were the first to announce “investigating the explosion of a vehicle at the Rainbow Bridge, a border crossing point between the United States and Canada at Niagara Falls”, on his X account (formerly Twitter).
The FBI office for the city of Buffalo, a northern city in New York State, being close to the famous Niagara Falls, has deployed investigators specializing in the fight against “terrorism”.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said on X that her state police are “working with the FBI terrorism unit to monitor all points of entry” into her state of New York.
She added that she would go there.
As for the mayor of New York City Eric Adams, hundreds of km to the south, he announced that “security” would be “reinforced” in the megacity, on the eve of the long Thanksgiving weekend where millions of Americans travel to celebrate with family.
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11/22/2023 21:34:43 – New York (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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