An explosive device was detonated outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Thursday, allegedly by a 26-year-old man from Inner Mongolia, according to multiple reports citing Chinese authorities.
The device was detonated at 1 p.m. Beijing time near the embassy’s southeast corner, CNN reports. The suspect was the only person injured and is expected to survive the wound to his hand.
Sanitation worker Li Shaohui, 58, told Reuters he felt the ground shake, making people in the area scream.
“I thought first there was big a car crash,” he said, adding that the smoke quickly cleared.
In a statement, the U.S. Embassy confirmed the incident in the capital’s Chaoyang District: “According to the Embassy’s Regional Security Officer, there was one individual who detonated a bomb. Other than the bomber, no other people were injured and there was no damage to embassy property. The local police responded.”
Beijing police described the device as a “firecracker” and did not mention the embassy in its statement, CNN reported.
A number of witnesses described seeing white smoke in the surrounding area after the explosion.
“There was a lot of smoke and it smelled a lot like fireworks and matches,” a nearby IT worker said to CNN.
“Everything over there was smoke,” a woman told the outlet.
Videos of the aftermath began appearing on social media soon after the explosion.
In what may be an unrelated incident, a woman was detained by police for dousing herself with gasoline, state-run media outlet Global Times reported, according to NPR.
The news comes in the midst of the China-U.S. trade dispute, Fox News noted Thursday. However, authorities did comment on a potential motive for the bombing.
