Bombs found in New Jersey as five detained after New York bombing

A “THUNDEROUS” blast tore through a New Jersey train station this morning after three pipe bombs and two other devices were found nearby.

While the earth-shattering explosion could have been a controlled detonation, NBC correspondent Miguel Almaguer reported that it “seemed to startle many police and sent others running.”

The blast came just before 1am Monday morning Eastern Time, leaving an odour of gunpowder in the air, after trains through the station in Elizabeth were suspended and homes and businesses evacuated.

Police had been warned by an anonymous 911 caller that more explosions would follow Saturday’s dumpster bombing in New York, which left 29 people injured.

A second device, described as a pressure cooker with wires and a mobile phone attached, was also found a few blocks from the Manhattan explosion.

The New Jersey explosion wraps up a weekend of terror in the US, in which a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey coastal town ahead of a charity race on Saturday morning and a mass stabbing at a Minnesota shopping centre was claimed by Islamic State.

A hazmat team was called to the New Jersey station overnight and Union County Bomb Squad brought in a robot as trains on the Northeast Corridor between Newark Airport and Penn Station were cancelled.