Beach evacuated; witnesses report boom, woman knocked down

A spokesperson for DEM says the bomb squad and state Fire Marshall is investigating the situation and are discussing whether to close George’s of Galilee as a precaution. The beach was evacuated after the incident.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Officials are trying to determine what caused a blast that knocked a Rhode Island beachgoer to the ground, but left behind no obvious evidence of an explosive device.

Beachgoers were forced to evacuate a sunny Rhode Island beach Saturday as authorities investigated reports of a possible explosion in the sand that knocked a woman into a rock wall.

There were no reports of other injuries. She was transported to South County Hospital.

The investigation now involves a bomb squad at the beach and local police looking for a potential suspect who may have planted something in the sand, the Daily Mail reported.

“It was like an M-80 boom, like a grenade”, Lewis said, adding that there was no debris or black smoke from the explosion.

“They heard what sounded like a firecracker going off and they felt this concussion, which threw her from her chair”, Blanchard said in the CNN interview.

Authorities are speculating that the suspect may have hidden the source of the beach explosion in the sand before disappearing toward Rogers Williams beach, said the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Sgt.