Police say there's nothing suspicious about the event.

 

The mainstream TV news and papers are going to have a field day with these images, however. :rolleyes: "Memories of 9/11" yadda, yadda, yadda.

 

They are even talking about terror attacks as I write this!!! Fear mongering bastards!!!

 

Watch the BBC News 24 Live Stream here (story might have ended by now) -

 

Buildings Evacuated After Midtown Explosion

 

By Sewell Chan

Smoke from the explosion could be seen between Park and Lexington Avenues near 34th Street. (Photo: Eric Okamura)

 

UPDATED, 6:40 p.m.

Fire Department officials said that the explosion this evening near Grand Central Terminal appeared to be either a transformer or a manhole explosion and that they had issued four alarms.

 

Fire officials are reporting that one civilian was injured and taken to Weill Cornell Medical College at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; the severity of the injuries was unknown.

 

Service on the 42nd Street shuttle has also been disrupted, according to New York City Transit.

 

“There have been reports of a transformer or some other kind of an explosion near Grand Central,” said Michael S. Clendenin, the spokesman for Consolidated Edison.

 

The authorities have cleared the block of East 41st Street between Third and Lexington Avenues.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation, said that smoke or steam was visible from the agency’s offices on the 37th floor of 633 Third Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets.

 

“There has been a sustained thundering sound for 15 minutes and steam is billowing into the air,” Mr. Cockfield wrote in an e-mail message. “We can see it from our offices on the 37th floor at 633 Third Avenue. People are running helter-skelter.”

 

6:25 p.m. | Charles F. Seaton, a New York City Transit spokesman, said that all subway trains on the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines were bypassing Grand Central Terminal at the direction of the police.

 

Paula Forteau, a nanny, said she was at Third Avenue and 38th Street after a supermarket run when “I heard a loud noise, a rumbling noise. Everyone started running downtown. There was one loud noise, and then it just continued. I saw a cloud of white smoke.”

 

6:18 p.m. | Several office buildings were evacuated around 6 p.m. this evening following what appears to be a transformer explosion that sent thick black smoke billowing around the area, according to news agencies and eyewitnesses.

Police and fire units were sent to the scene.

 

Caryn Tutino, a news designer for The Times, was waiting for a bus outside the New York Public Library, at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street when the explosion occurred. “All of a sudden, we just heard this explosion and all these people came down running down 41st Street, and screaming,” she said. “It looked like it was coming from Grand Central. I looked down 41st Street and saw a huge black cloud of smoke.” Ms. Tutino said that the people seemed panicked and upset.

A tragic accident :(