Terrorism investigation opened after fatal vehicle explosion outside Liverpool hospital

British counterterrorism police were tasked with investigating a vehicle explosion on Sunday outside a women’s hospital in Liverpool, northern England, local police said. Merseyside police said they were alerted on Sunday morning around 11 a.m. (GMT) and immediately intervened. The incident, the circumstances of which remain unclear, left one dead.

“Unfortunately, we can confirm that one person has died and another has been taken to hospital where they are being treated for injuries, which luckily are not life threatening.”, police said in a statement. “So far, we understand that the car involved was a taxi that stopped at the hospital shortly before the explosion”, specified the police which indicates that the “work is still in progress to establish what happened”.

British counterterrorism police said on Sunday evening they had arrested three men “Three men – aged 29, 26 and 21 – were arrested in the Kensington area of ​​Liverpool and arrested under the Terrorism Act”police said on Twitter.

Police lines were put in place and roads closed to traffic near the scene of the incident, from which heavy gray smoke escaped, according to images posted on local media websites. Phil Garrigan, Merseyside Fire Chief, said the vehicle fire was “fully developed” when emergency vehicles arrive.

“The operational teams extinguished the fire quickly, but as the police chief indicated, there was one death”, he told reporters on the spot. “Another individual had left the vehicle before the fire started”, he clarified.

The hospital said in a statement “divert patients as far as possible to other hospitals until further notice” and continue to allow ambulances to access the hospital “in case of emergency”. The police urged the population to “remain calm but vigilant”.