HollyMatkinNew York, NY – A pipe bomb exploded near the Port Authority Bus Terminal during morning rush hour on Monday, and the suspect was immediately taken into custody, police said.
Investigators said the suspect was the only person injured in the blast, which occurred about 200 feet from the terminal at West 24nd St. and Eighth Ave. in an underground subway passage, the New York Daily News reported.
The suspect attached wires to himself and had a five-inch metal pipe bomb and battery pack strapped to his body, The New York Post reported.
Investigators said that the explosion occurred while the suspect was carrying a pipe bomb or some other type of explosive device. It was believed that the bomb either detonated prematurely, or that it only partially detonated, NBC News reported.
The suspect’s injuries were described as “minor,” NBC News reported.
It does not appear that any subway structures were damaged in the blast.
“It wasn’t a big explosion,” an unnamed police source told the New York Daily News.
The explosion caused chaos and panic for Monday morning commuters, who fled the bustling terminal and pushed others to safety.
“I was about to swipe in my card and out of nowhere, we heard a really loud bang, everyone said ‘get out, get out!'” a man told NBC News.
Francisco Ramirez told CNN that he heard two explosions as he stepped off a but at about 7:45 a.m.
“From what I saw it sounded like it came from the subway,” he said. “It was two distinct explosions seconds from each other. As I was making my way toward the outside, I kept getting shoved by cops and there were cops at every entrance blocking and there was police and SWAT everywhere.”
“It was scary. It was just a lot of chaos but I didn’t see any injuries,” Ramirez said.
The suspect is believed to be a man in his 20s who is possibly from Bangladesh, former New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
He said the suspect has been in the U.S. for approximately seven years.
Comm. Bratton added that the suspect “supposedly was setting the device off in the name of ISIS, so definitely a terrorist attack, definitely intended.”
The Port Authority Bus Terminal is the largest in the U.S., NBC News reported.
Approximately 230,000 passengers pass through the terminal on an average day.