A pipe bomb exploded in a Jersey Shore town on Saturday, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5km race to benefit US Marines and sailors, authorities said.

No injuries were reported in the blast in Seaside Park around 9.30am, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County prosecutor’s office. He also said no surrounding structures suffered any apparent damage.

The third annual Semper Five run, named for the US Marines motto “semper fidelis”, “always loyal”, was canceled and the immediate area was put on lockdown.

The pipe bomb was in a plastic garbage can when it exploded, Della Fave said. Authorities immediately cleared the boardwalk and beach area and bomb-sniffing dogs were used to search the area.

“It’s obvious it was meant to affect the run, the fact that it went off at 9.35,” Della Fave said in an interview on CNN.

Asked if marines and their families had been targeted, he said: “I think we can assume that, considering the location of the device right along the run route where, if it was just a matter of minutes in terms of difference, there would have been a good number of people running past that explosive device.”

The garbage can contained several “pipe bomb-type devices” wired together, Fave said. “The one went off, and the others did not,” he said.

Numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies were investigating, but authorities said they did not know the motive for the blast.

“What the intentions of the individual, we don’t know yet, whether it was criminal or terroristic,” Della Fave told CNN.

Authorities said there was a report of at least one other explosive device that a New Jersey state police bomb team would “make safe”, but further details were not disclosed.

It was not clear when the boardwalk and beach would reopen. Some homes near the scene were evacuated as a precaution, and the public was being urged to avoid the area.



The group that organized the event thanked Seaside Park police and the other emergency responders “for their quick action”. It wasn’t immediately clear if the charity race would be rescheduled.