New York: Hundreds of tourists were evacuated from near the Statue of Liberty in New York as well as Liberty Island as a precautionary measure to overcome a bomb threat and suspicious package.
The National Park Service said that they had been informed from a 9/11 caller that they were going to blow up the Statue of Liberty in New York.
Federal police who arrived with sniffer dogs found “an area of interest” near lockers at the base of the statue and carried out an emergency evacuation process in the island.
After a thorough search operation, the area was declared safe by the authorities during late afternoon.
The city’s fire department said that they had been called at 12:57 local time (16:57 GMT) for the investigation of “a suspicious package”.
Statue Cruises, which takes tourists to the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island, said that ferryboat services were postponed after officials found a suspicious package at Liberty Island.
Karen Mason, 68, of Cincinnati, Ohio, said that they were just boarded a boat at Ellis Island at 12:40 p.m. and forced to evacuate it immediately.
According to the woman, there were no such dangers at the first sense, but the presence of helicopters in the sky was the indication of something wrong.
The globally famous Statue of Liberty was given to the US by France in 1886, as a mark of respect regarding the friendship between the two nations.
Video on evacuation due to bomb threat at Statue of Liberty
