RTX15IRD
An explosion occurred at Salty Brine beach in Rhode Island. Pictured: the similar Bailey's Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. Reuters

UPDATE 2:45 p.m. ET:

Police are now looking for a suspect who reportedly planted something in the sand moments before the explosion and fled to a nearby beach, according to tweets from a Providence Journal reporter. The woman who was injured in the incident is reportedly conscious and awake in a hospital.

Original story below:

An apparent explosion has left at least one person injured at a Rhode Island beach on Saturday, according to media reports. Police and firefighters are working to evacuate Salty Brine Beach in Narragansett as the state's bomb squad investigates reports of an explosion that occurred near a rocky area of the beach, reported the Providence Journal.

The details of the incident are still not entirely clear, but a 50-year-old woman, who has since been take to a local hospital, appeared to be "trapped" on a rocky area of the jetty, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) spokesperson Rayna Maguire told the newspaper. Witnesses reportedly told Maguire that there was an explosion underneath the sand which then propelled the woman onto the rocks.

“It was like an M-80 boom, like a grenade," witness Mario Lewis told the Providence Journal. Lewis told the paper that the woman was injured just feet away from him. Lewis reportedly said that there was no debris or black smoke in the explosion, speculating that it might have been a "gas explosion."

There were no other reports of injuries, and no further information on the hospitalized woman was available, reported WPRI in Providence. The station reported that the DEM confirmed it received reports of the explosion at about 11:15 a.m. Saturday. The DEM requested a bomb technician from the state fire marshal’s office, who reportedly arrived at about 1 p.m. A cause for the explosion has not yet been determined.

A Bobcat front-end loader, operated by the DEM under the supervision of the bomb squad, is working to move sand away from the site of the incident to a higher spot on the beach, the Providence Journal reported. Authorities are also reportedly setting up a command center. A DEM official said authorities are considering closing nearby restaurant George's of Galilee as a precaution, WJAR in Providence reported.

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