Two people are dead after a speeding vehicle went airborne and then burst into flames at a border checkpoint at the Rainbow Bridge on Wednesday morning.
It happened just before 11:30 a.m. on the U.S. side of the crossing.
Surveillance footage, released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, shows the vehicle speeding down a road leading up to the border checkpoint. The vehicle then leaves the roadway, crosses over a median and appears to go airborne.
Officials have confirmed that two individuals inside the vehicle died as a result of the incident.
A U.S. border patrol officer also sustained minor injuries and was taken to hospital. They have since been treated and released.
“When you look at the scale of the scene, at how far the pieces of this vehicle exploded and scattered and the fact that there has been some damage to other vehicles, thank God there was nobody else injured,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters during a briefing on Wednesday afternoon. “It could have been much more cataclysmic.”
At this point it is not clear what lead up to the incident, however Hochul said that there is “no evidence at this time” of terrorist activity.
Sources did tell CTV News earlier in the day that Canadian government officials were initially operating under the assumption that it was terror-related.
For that reason officials conveyed to police forces that they should increase their presence at likely terror targets, the sources said.
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