US-Canada bridge still shut after deadly car blast

The Rainbow Bridge connecting the US and Canada near Niagara Falls remains closed for a second day following a deadly car explosion.

The Wednesday morning incident triggered a major security scare on the eve of Thanksgiving.

A husband driving the car and his wife were killed, and a US border agent was injured.

New York’s governor ruled out terrorism, but many unknowns remain, including the identity of the couple.

The explosion happened at around 11:30 local time (16:30 GMT) on Wednesday, causing serious disruption on one of the busiest travel days of the year ahead of American Thanksgiving.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the car travelled at a “very high rate of speed”, hurling over an 8ft (2.4m) fence on the New York side of the border near a checkpoint.

The vehicle had been “incinerated”, Ms Hochul said, and nothing was left but the engine. Not even a registration plate was recovered.

US law enforcement confirmed that the two people inside the car were a married couple. But it remains unclear who they were and why they had crashed.

CNN reported that the motorist was driving a 2022 Bentley and had just been to a US casino, after a concert by hard rock band Kiss that he was initially going to attend in Canada had been cancelled.

Ms Hochul described one of the people who died as a “local” from the western New York Region.

Source: bbc.com

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