New York bus terminal reopens after bomb threat

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) Police evacuated half of New York's busiest bus terminal today and arrested an emotionally disturbed man who authorities feared had a bomb on a bus, officials said.

Police detained a 28-year-old Wisconsin man who did not get off a bus when it arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal from Pennsylvania at about 1 p.m. (2230 hrs IST), Marc Lavorgna, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said.

The south wing of the terminal was evacuated for more than three hours and reopened it around 4.30 p.m. (0200 hrs IST) The north wing remained open throughout the incident.

''We have a 28-year-old in custody who appears to be an emotionally disturbed person,'' Lavorgna said. ''He just didn't get off the bus. He did not say (that he had a bomb). He was not really speaking coherently.'' He said that while it was unsure what the man's intentions were, police treated the incident as a bomb threat.

The terminal on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 42nd streets near Times Square in Midtown Manhattan serves 200,000 passengers a day, making it what the Port Authority calls the busiest bus terminal in the world.

The Port Authority owns and operates airports, bridges, tunnels and other transportation infrastructure in the New York metropolitan area.

It owns the World Trade Center site that was attacked twice, first by truck bomb in 1993 and again on September 11, 2001.

Security experts consider many of its properties to be potential soft targets for any new attack on the city.

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