A vehicle exploded at Niagara Falls, causing a fire and smoke to billow on Rainbow Bridge along the US-Canada border.
The car reportedly sped the wrong way and struck border inspection booths on Wednesday morning.
Two witnesses said they heard a loud noise and that a massive smoke cloud formed near the inspections station around 11.20am, according to the Niagara Gazette.
‘We heard something smash,’ said one of the witnesses, Ivan Vitalii who was visiting from Ukraine. ‘We saw fire and big, black smoke.’
Another bystander, Mike Guenther, said he observed a car speeding from the US side to the border crossing and saw it swerve to avoid another vehicle and smash into a fence.
‘All of a sudden he went up in the air and then it was a ball of fire like 30 or 40 feet high,’ he told WGRZ. ‘I never saw anything like it.’
Rainbow Bridge was closed to traffic and a Niagara Falls Police Department captain directed away motorists and pedestrians near the inspections plaza.
All four border crossings by land between the US and Canada have now been shuttered, according to the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission. The other three crossings are at Peace Bridge, Lewiston and Whirlpool.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul directed the state police to work with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force ‘to monitor all points of entry to New York’.
‘I am traveling to Buffalo to meet with law enforcement and emergency responders and will update New Yorkers when more information becomes available,’ she stated.
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