Empty rice cookers spark bomb scare in New York

DREW ANGERER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP

Three abandoned rice cookers sparked a massive evacuation at one of New York City's busiest transit hubs and snarled rush-hour traffic on Friday.

Police later determined the objects were not explosives and launched a search for a man who was "observed in the area of the Fulton Street subway station with a shopping cart and a suspicious device".

Surveillance footage showed the man taking two of the rice cookers out of a shopping cart and placing them in the subway station in lower Manhattan.

Police said the first alarm was sounded in Manhattan around 7:00 am (local time) when a passenger saw a cooker abandoned at the Fulton Street subway station.

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