A package exploded on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston late on Tuesday, and the college said a staff member suffered minor injuries.
Authorities said another suspicious package was found near a prominent art museum and the FBI was assisting with the investigation.
The parcel that blew up was one of two reported to police early in the evening. Boston’s bomb squad neutralized a second package near the Museum of Fine Arts, which is on the outskirts of the Northeastern campus.
NBC Boston reported that the package that exploded went off as it was being opened near Holmes Hall, home to the university’s creative writing program and its women’s, gender and sexuality studies program. It said the FBI was assisting the investigation.
A Northeastern spokesperson, Shannon Nargi, said an unidentified university staff member suffered minor injuries to his hand in the explosion. Felipe Colon, a Boston police superintendent, later described the victim as a 45-year-old man.
Police converged on the campus shortly before 7.30pm. The university asked students who had gathered for an evening journalism class at the hall to evacuate the building.
Northeastern is a private university in downtown Boston with about 16,000 undergraduate students. WCVB-TV said one of its reporters, Mike Beaudet, was teaching a class there at the time. Beaudet told the station his class was moved outside but that neither he nor his students heard an explosion.
Michael Davis, chief of the Northeastern police force, told reporters the campus was secure. Boston police didn’t say whether any other suspicious packages were found.
“We’re monitoring the situation at Northeastern and we’re ready to work with the university and our law enforcement partners on any prosecutions that may develop,” the Suffolk county district attorney, Kevin Hayden, said, promising “a comprehensive investigation to determine exactly what occurred here”.
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both on the other side of the Charles River separating Boston from Cambridge, said they were increasing patrols on campus as a precaution and urging students and faculty to report anything suspicious.
The explosion was one of the first big scares in Boston since 2013, when two bombs planted near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three and wounded more than 260.
