Donald Trump has weighed in on the New York explosion, as reported by the Hill . Trump has called the explosion a bomb , prior to information about the source of the explosion being uncovered. Trump was speaking in Colorado Springs on Saturday, September 17, when Trump called the New York explosion a bomb. Trump said that, as a result of the bomb that went off in New York and injured folks, people needed to get very tough.
“Just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what’s going on. We’ve got to get very tough.”
The explosion occurred in Chelsea on Saturday evening at approximately 9 p.m. ET. Trump’s live stream speech in Colorado Springs was being broadcast on YouTube, as seen in the below video, as news about the New York explosion broke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-qsQrSkKm0
Trump might have hit the nail on the head in terms of calling the explosion the result of bomb — however, authorities have not confirmed that the New York explosion was due to a bomb, as of this writing. As seen in the below tweet of a screenshot from Fox News Live , the New York Police Department’s counter terrorism division was responding to the explosion.
I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with the pipe bomb earlier today by the race pic.twitter.com/WX1epSrf8v
— Miss Mary (@DivintyMary) September 18, 2016
As reported by the New York Post , the explosion happened when a dumpster blew up. The explosion was so large that it blew out windows in a Chelsea apartment building for the visually impaired. The residence is 14-stories tall. As a result of the explosion, 26 people were reportedly injured.
Police sources did report that it could have been an explosive device that caused the explosion at the Associated Blind Housing facility. There was chaos that ensued at 135 W. 23rd Street, after the explosion rocked the location so strongly that the blast was called deafening.
As reported by CBS News , the explosion in New York took place in a very dense area, which is crowded with people and eateries. The publication has embedded videos from social media of the aftermath of the explosion.
Several ambulances responded to the scene, with the cause of the blast still unknown, as of this time. However, the bomb squad is at the scene in New York, with the area being blocked off. Many fire trucks are also on the scene.
As the news about the New York explosion broke, news about another explosion in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, also broke, as seen in the below tweet from Mike Valerio of NBC 12 .
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va – Explosion reported on Downtown Mall – Details coming in https://t.co/VfzPPprR2N
— Mike Valerio (@ValerioCNN) September 18, 2016
The explosion in the Downtown Mall area of Charlottesville caused the Charlottesville Fire Department to investigate the explosion between 3rd Street and Water Street — even though no reports of smoke or fire were reported.
Update : The Charlottesville explosion may have been related to an underground transformer, according to Valerio’s tweet seen below.
Reports from Charlottesville indicate underground transformer most likely cause of Downtown Mall explosion #BreakingNews
— Mike Valerio (@ValerioCNN) September 18, 2016
As reported by NBC 29 , Dominion Power is being tapped for information about the explosion.
Most people on social media reacting to the explosion in New York cannot help but connect the dots to the explosion that also occurred on the same day in New Jersey. A pipe bomb detonated outside of a charity race. That bomb exploded close to a Marine Corps race in New Jersey , reports CNN ?, with the charity race in Seaside Park being cancelled in the wake of that pipe bomb.
“Bomb in a dustbin in New Jersey, now an explosion in New York City. I hope no one is seriously hurt.”
“I think it’s too much of a coincidence that a bomb exploded in # Jersey today and now # Chelsea – I’m just saying.”
With news of the third explosion of the day happening in Charlottesville, people on social media are having big reactions to news of the series of explosions.
[Featured Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]