Exploding package injures staff member at Northeastern University in Boston

Incident causes night classes and dormitories to be evacuated as FBI says it is joining the probe

Students on the Northeastern University campus in January 2019 (AP)

A staff member at Northeastern University was injured when a package they were opening exploded, according to reports.

A spokesperson for the university told CNN that one of its employees had “sustained minor injuries” from a parcel delivered to Holmes Hall, the home of the university’s creative writing programme, around 7pm on Tuesday night.

The incident caused night classes and dormitory buildings to be evacuated, while university police told people to avoid the area and nearby colleges such as Harvard and MIT increased their security measures.

A police bomb squad was dispatched to the scene, and within hours the FBI confirmed to The Boston Herald that it had joined the investigation.

“Multiple Boston EMS units responded to Leon St in Boston for a reported explosion,” said Boston’s emergency management service. “One patient treated and transported by BLS ambulance to an area hospital. No additional information available at this time.”

The service said that the person treated was a 45-year-old man with non-life-threatening injuries.

Boston police also said they were responding to a report of another suspicious college near the Museum of Fine Arts.

Northeastern University student Susanna Maize told local broadcaster 7News: “All of a sudden, the fire alarm started going off, which [is] pretty routine, so we didn’t think much of it.

“We came outside to the sidewalk, and then all of a sudden, we saw that there was a lot more police and fire presence than we expected.”

Another student, Ryan Di Corpo, said: “The police present immediately put up police tape and told everybody that was there to move back into the main street.

“Then one of the ladder trucks hoisted a ladder up to the roof of the building, and a firefighter with what I believed to be an axe went up on top of the building.”