At least one person killed after bomb explodes outside fertility clinic
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At least one person is believed to have died after an explosion damaged a fertility clinic in California.
Police and firefighters rushed to the American Reproductive Centers clinic in Palm Springs at around 11am on Saturday.
Investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on their way to the scene to help assess what happened.
The incident is being investigated as a possible car explosion, law enforcement sources said. Mayor Ron deHarte said a bomb had been left in or near a car parked close to the clinic.
Authorities have not disclosed a motive.
'Everything is in question—whether this is an act of terrorism,' Lt. William Hutchinson told The Desert Sun from the scene.
Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the fertility clinic, confirmed all of his staff were safe and accounted for.
Photos of the clinic show extensive damage to the outside of the building, but the IVF lab and all the embryos inside were unharmed.
'I really have no clue what happened,' Dr Abdallah said. 'Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.'
Nima Tabrizi, 37, from Santa Monica, said he was inside a cannabis dispensary nearby when he felt a massive explosion.
'The building just shook, and we go outside and there's massive cloud smoke,' he said. More Trending
'Crazy explosion. It felt like a bomb went off. … We went up to the scene, and we saw human remains.'
He added that the explosion didn't seem to him to come from a car.
Palm Springs is a tony community in the desert about a two-hour drive east of Los Angeles.
It is known for upscale resorts and a history of celebrity residents.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
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