Pictured: Boy, 8, who was waiting to give his runner father a hug at finish line is named as one of three Boston Marathon bombing victims along with woman in her twenties while 144 are injured and 17 left in critical conditionMartin Richard, 8, and woman in 20s among three confirmed dead in the worstz terror attack since September 11
At least 144 people injured, at least 17 of them in critical condition and 'a lot' of amputations have been performed
'At least 25 to 30 people have at least one leg missing, or an ankle missing, or two legs missing,' says police officer
Around eight of the patients are children, including boy, 2, with head injury, after blasts tear through spectator area
Witnesses recount war zone at finish line as bombs leave area littered with limbs and 'shoes with flesh still in them'
President Obama vows to hunt down culprits and bring them to justice as FBI classifies bombings as terrorist attack
FBI warned police to be on lookout for 'darker-skinned or black male' with a possible foreign accent
Hospitals report removing ball bearings from victims, suggesting the bombs were designed to propel shrapnel
Two detonations came 12 seconds apart, with witnesses describing scenes of utter 'pandemonium'
An eight-year-old boy waiting at the finish line to give his father a hug was among three people killed and more than 144 injured when two explosions rocked the Boston Marathon in the worst terrorist atrocity since 9/11.
Martin Richard died after bombs hidden in trash cans were detonated within seconds of each other during the Patriots’ Day bank holiday yesterday, sending terrified runners and spectators fleeing for their lives and leaving a scene of 'unspeakable horror'.
Boston police closed off the city as a ‘danger zone’ as witnesses described seeing body parts flying through the air and shoes that 'still had flesh in them' in an attack that has sent shockwaves across the world.
At least 17 of the injured are in a critical condition and it is thought as many as 30 victims may have needed amputations or major corrective surgery on maimed limbs.
At least eight of the wounded are thought to be children, including a two-year-old boy who suffered a head injury.
Another was 11-year-old Aaron Hern, 11, of Martinez, California, who was hit by flying shrapnel in his thigh as he waited for his mother to cross the finish line. He is being treated at Boston Children's Hospital and is expected to undergo further surgeries.
Today, as the United States remained on full alert, President Barack Obama vowed to hunt down the culprits and 'hold them accountable'.
Last night detectives raided a Boston home in connection with the explosion. It came after a man, said to be of Saudi origin, was arrested at the scene and taken to hospital, where he was treated for burns and shrapnel wounds.
Startling video footage showed an explosion going off in the heart of the crowd that had lined the streets of the Massachusetts city yesterday to watch the famous sporting event.
After the twin detonations ripped through the cheering crowds, one witness told CNN that it 'felt like a huge cannon' and other described horrifying scenes of screaming spectators, missing limbs and unresponsive bodies.
'In 28 years, this is definitely the worst I've seen,' said District Fire Chief Ron Harrington of the Boston Fire Department's District 3 to NBC News.
'Bodies and body parts. Blood all over. A little boy lying in the street. A young woman in her twenties. Both dead. It was mayhem. I saw two people with arms hanging loose, and one without a leg. A shoe with flesh still in it.'
After the blasts, two more suspicious devices were found in the city’s Mandarin Oriental and Lenox hotels. Both were evacuated and the suspected bombs dismantled.
According to the Boston Globe, Martin Richard, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, may very nearly have cheated death after walking out to embrace his father Bill Richard as he went to cross the finishing line.
But when Mr Richard walked on, the youngster turned back to rejoin his mother and two of his siblings just as the first bomb exploded.
His six-year-old sister lost a leg in the blast and his mother Denise is in hospital after undergoing brain surgery. Martin's older brother, believed to be in the fifth grade, escaped injury.
According to 7News, a candle was lit outside the family home and the word 'Peace' written on the pavement.
Mr Richard is understood to be a popular community leader in the Boston suburb. Martin was a keen baseball player and was a member of Savin Hill Little League team. On Twitter, Maeve O Brien called him ‘the sweetest little boy I’ve ever met.’
The news came after around 20 police and federal officials, including members of the bomb squad searched the apartment of a 'person of interest' in the Boston marathon bombings on Monday evening after witnessing an erratic driver circling past the State Police barracks a number of times.
Officers with the Revere police force, which is five miles from downtown Boston, pulled him over and a source told WBZ-TV that he displayed a 'nervous demeanor'.
The driver then led police, as well as the FBI, to a home in the area of Ocean Avenue and Beach Street - which was then descended upon by Boston Police K-9 units, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Homeland Security investigations.
A source confirmed that the large police presence at the home in Revere is related to the Boston Marathon bombings - which killed three people, including an eight-year-old boy and left 144 people injured - 17 critically.
Marcus Worthington, 24, a resident in the building said no one from the police or FBI has told him what is happening.
'I started noticing the cars, the Taurus there and that one about 5,' Worthington said. 'We were thankful we decide not to go down. It’s best not to jump to conclusions.'
Boston Police Crime Scene Response unit arrived and two members of that unit took several brown paper bags, normally used to store evidence taken from the scene, into the building and left with them full afterwards.
On Monday, the FBI, which has taken over the investigation into the outrage - announced that they were searching for a man they described as having dark skin, wearing black clothes and a black back-pack who tried to gain entry into a restricted area during the marathon.
It was also reported that he may have had a foreign accent.
Initially counter-terrorism sources in the city believed that seven devices were planted across the city - but only two detonated.
However, a law-enforcement official said late on Monday evening that investigators now doubt those devices were bombs, but were in fact suspect packages - left behind as runners and pedestrians rushed away from the scene in the aftermath of the blasts.
Eventually law enforcement and city officials disputed published reports that investigators had discovered one or more bombs that had failed to explode.
A federal law enforcement official told CNN that both bombs which detonated at the Boston finish line were small, and initial tests showed no C-4 or other high-grade explosive was used - indicating they were crude devices.
At an evening briefing, officials said the National Guard had cordoned off the area to preserve evidence.
'I am not prepared to say we are at ease at this point in time,' sad Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis according to NBC News.
Boston police initially issued an alert for a rental van that may have sought access to the marathon route, and then another alert for a man wearing dark clothing and a hood who was seen leaving the scene of the blasts.
CBS News reported earlier that authorities are also reviewing surveillance video that shows a man from behind carrying two backpacks near the site of the explosions. Authorities are not sure whether the subject in the video is linked to the blasts.
Boston police say no suspect has been taken into custody.
The two bombs which exploded in the crowded streets near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday raised the specter that terrorism has struck again in the U.S.
Indeed, a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still unfolding said the attack was being treated as an act of terrorism.
In Washington, President Barack Obama vowed during an address to the nation just after 6 p.m. on Monday that, 'Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice.'
Boston 'is a tough and resilient town,' he said, adding that Americans will stand by Bostonians 'every single step of the way.'
After the twin detonations ripped through the cheering crowds, witnesses described the horror.
The fiery twin blasts took place about 10 seconds and about 100 yards apart, knocking spectators and at least one runner off their feet, shattering windows and sending dense plumes of smoke rising over the street and through the fluttering national flags lining the route.
Blood stained the pavement, and huge shards were missing from window panes as high as three stories.
The explosions ripped into an idyllic afternoon finish for the marathon. The first men had passed the finish line 2 hours and 10 minutes after the staggered start, and the first women crossed just 16 minutes later.
The first blast sent a quick plume of smoke two stories high. Runners nearby stopped in their tracks, confused and unsure. After a few seconds later, a second explosion happened a half-block away, with a deep boom caught on television cameras.
Emergency personnel rushed to the area, and the street was quickly sealed off.
'I saw it go off and smoke billowed up. Everyone just stopped and hunched down,' said Pam Ledtke, 51, from Indianapolis, who was about 75 yards from the finish line when the explosions went off. 'They didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden, people were screaming.'
One doctor, Allan Panter, stood near to the finish line said he was 25-feet away from the first blast when it detonated.
'I saw at least six to seven people down next to me,' he said. 'They protected me from the blast. One lady expired. One gentleman lost both his (lower) limbs. Most of the injuries were lower extremities.'
Nickilynn Estologa, a nursing student who was volunteering in a block-long medical tent designed to treat fatigued runners, said five to six victims immediately staggered inside. Several were children; one was in his 60s.
'Some were bleeding from the head, they had glass shards in their skin,’ she said.
'One person had the flesh gone from his leg; it was just hanging there.’ Another woman, she added, was lying on a gurney as emergency personnel raced through the tent, giving her CPR.
'I just can’t believe anyone would do something like this,’ Estologa said.
'I saw two explosions,' reported Boston Herald journalist Chris Cassidy, who was running in the marathon. 'The first one was beyond the finish line. I heard a loud bang and I saw smoke rising.'
Veteran marathon runner Bill Iffrig, 78, was almost at the finish when 'the shock waves just hit my whole body and my legs just started jittering around.'
Iffrig, can be seen wearing an orange tank top and falling to the ground in video of the explosion, and was helped to his feet by an event volunteer and had just a scratch from his fall, he told CNN.
Right after the blasts, police officers could be seen carrying bloody spectators to medical tents intended for exhausted runners in desperate attempts to save lives.
'They just started bringing people in with no limbs,' said runner Tim Davey of Richmond, Va. He said he and his wife, Lisa, tried to shield their children's eyes from the gruesome scene inside a medical tent that had been set up to care for fatigued runners, but 'they saw a lot.'
'They just kept filling up with more and more casualties,' Lisa Davey said. 'Most everybody was conscious. They were very dazed.'
The victims reportedly range from two-years-old to 63-years-old. Hospitals across Boston have said that they were removing ball bearings from a large number of the 144 injured in the co-ordinated and almost simultaneous bomb blasts.
Medical officials have said that at least 10 injured people had limbs amputated and several of the patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital suffered injuries to lower limbs that will require 'serial operations' in the coming days, trauma surgeon Peter Fagenholz said on Monday night to CNN.
Dr Ron Walls, chair of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told ABC News that he had not identified any shrapnel, such as ball bearings, but saw a lot of 'street stuff' that had injured their patients.
'Rocks, bits of metal, soda cans, anything that is really close to a blast like that can be fragmented,' he said. 'Everything we saw was ordinary material that could have been propelled by the device.'
Boston Children’s Hospital received eight patients injured at the explosion at the Boston Marathon. Patients’ conditions ranged from good to serious. There were no patient deaths among the patients brought to Boston Children’s from the scene.
Their patients included a 2 year-old-boy with a head injury who has been admitted to the Medical/Surgical ICU, a a 9-year-old girl with leg trauma who was sent to the operating room and a 12-year-old boy with a femur fracture. The condition of these children currently is not known.
Speaking to the nation just after 6.p.m on Monday, President Barack Obama reiterated that many people were injured, 'some gravely' and remarked that on days like today, 'there are no Republicans or Democrats,' emphasizing that it is crucial not to categorize the bombings as terrorist attacks.'
The president made clear that 'We will find out who did this and hold them accountable.'
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis had said at an afternoon press conference that there was a third, uncontrolled explosion at the JFK Library which was believed to be an electrical fire.
However, any link to the earlier bombs at the marathon finish line has been ruled out. Police were keen to underline there had been no arrests but they did say they were talking to suspects.
There was another individual pictured in handcuffs near to the scene in Boston's Commons Park but it wasn't clear whether it was an unrelated arrest or not.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent all of its bomb technicians, explosives officers, explosives specialists and canine officers from their Boston and New York field divisions to the scene, as well as some investigators from Washington.
Hours after twin explosions rang out near the city's Copley Square, President Obama appeared before the nation to tell them, 'We still don't know who did this or why they did this,' vowing that Americans stand by those affected.
Vice President Joe Biden was on a conference call with gun control activists when staffers turned on televisions in his office Monday to view coverage of the explosions. Biden said during the call that his prayers were with those who suffered injuries.
Biden released a statement regarding the Boston Marathon bombings: 'Our prayers are with those people in Boston who have suffered injuries. I don’t know how many there are.'
Governor Deval Patrick added: 'Every asset of the Commonwealth (state) of Massachusetts and the federal government is either here or coming here,'
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and other agencies were all lending assistance to the investigation, authorities said.
Obama directed his administration to provide whatever assistance was necessary, the White House said. Obama was being briefed by Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco and other staff, the White House said.
Spectators typically line the 26.2 mile race course, with the heaviest crowds near the finish line.
The transit agency shut down all service to the area, citing police activity, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration temporarily restricted airspace over the scene, a spokesman said.
The Boston Marathon has been held on Patriot's Day, the third Monday of April, since 1897. The event, which starts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and ends in Boston's Copley Square, attracts an estimated half-million spectators and some 20,000 participants every year.
Of the 23,326 runners who started the race on Monday, 17,584 finished before the blast, marathon officials said. The runners were diverted before officials brought the marathon to a halt.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra cancelled Monday night's concert and the National Hockey League's Boston Bruins canceled their home game against the Ottawa Senators.
In response to the attacks, both the White House and New York's Times Square were given extra security measures. The White House released in a statement that President Obama received a briefing from Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco and other members of his staff in the Oval Office.
'The president called Boston Mayor Tom Menino and expressed his concern for those who were injured and to make clear that his administration is ready to provide needed support as they respond to this incident.'
Boston’s Lenox Hotel that serves as the headquarters for the Boston Marathon was locked down on Monday after a security incident near the finish line.
In the hour after the explosions one senior U.S. intelligence official said that two other explosive devices found nearby were being dismantled.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the findings publicly. This later turned out to be a false claim.
State and local officials told CNN's John King in the immediate aftermath that there was no known credible threat prior to the explosions.
The marathon said in a statement: 'There were two bombs that exploded near the finish line in today's Boston Marathon. We are working with law enforcement to understand what exactly has happened.'
Some 23,000 runners took part in the 26.2-mile race, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious marathons. One of Boston's biggest annual events, the race winds up near Copley Square, not far from the landmark Prudential Center and the Boston Public Library.
In the aftermath Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis asked people to stay indoors or go back to their hotel rooms and avoid crowds as bomb squads checked parcels and bags left along the race route.
The Federal Aviation Administration barred low-flying aircraft from within 3.5 miles of the site.
Steven Saurbier, who saw the explosion’s aftermath from his window, told The New York Observer: ‘It shook my building, we’re about 100 yards down the street. I figured it was a cannon, or some giant confetti blast, or something planned for the Marathon.
'Then a second blast went off–much larger–and it rattled the whole building.
‘There was a large cloud of white smoke and people were running from the blast site. Police swarmed immediately, they removed one or two people after patting them down. There were a lot of injured people … I estimate 20 people were medically transported. … I saw a woman being carried by two men and I am almost positive her left leg was blown off at the knee.'
All off-duty Boston police officers were called in to work following the blasts.
Have a friend running the marathon? Check out this site to find their most recent checkpoint. Additionally, families looking for loved ones should call 617-635-4500. Anyone with info about explosions should call 1800-494-TIPS
Additional reporting by Sara Nathan.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2309545/Boston-Marathon-bombings-death-toll-Martin-Richard-8-named-1-3-victims-144-injured.html
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