Wed May 21, 2003 18:35 EDT
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) _ A bomb exploded in an empty classroom at the Yale University law school Wednesday, sending debris flying and students scrambling for safety. No injuries were reported.
Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart said the blast was caused by some sort of device, but there was ``limited damage.
There were no initial indications that an international terrorist organization set off the bomb, according to two U.S. officials who are familiar with intelligence information. They spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Smoke rose from downtown New Haven following the blast at about 5 p.m.
``I saw a huge fireball come out to the middle of the hallway,'' said law student Bob Hoo, who was in a hallway on the ground floor of the law school. ``It was there and then it was gone.''
Hoo said he did not see anything catch fire or anyone injured before he fled. Law student Alexandra Alperovich, who was sitting in the student lounge, said she saw a wall to the alumni lounge collapse after the blast, but wasn't sure whether anyone was inside.
``Everything started falling and I just ran out right away,'' she said
The FBI sent members of the agency's terrorism task force to the scene.
The incident came a day after the government raised the alert level for possible terrorist attacks and several hours after President Bush spoke at the Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony in New London.
Yale is Bush's alma mater and one of his daughters, Barbara, is finishing her junior year at the university. Secret Service spokesman John Gill said the younger Bush ``was not in danger at any time, and she was not in the vicinity'' of the blast.
Gill declined for security reasons to say whether the president's daughter was on campus at the time, but a senior law enforcement official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said she was not.
A Yale professor, David J. Gelernter, was seriously injured in 1993 when a Unabomber mail bomb exploded in his campus office. His right hand, arm, ear, lungs and other internal organs were injured.
Theodore Kaczynski was sentenced in 1998 for that attack and others that killed three people and injured 23 from 1978 to 1995.
