At least two killed, dozens wounded in blasts at Boston Marathon finish line

Ter­ri­ble news out of the Com­mon­wealth of Mass­a­chu­setts:

Two peo­ple were killed and at least 23 peo­ple were injured in two explo­sions that rocked the Boston Marathon steps away from the fin­ish line.

A senior U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cial said two more explo­sive devices were found near the area, and they were being dismantled.

The first blasts hap­pened at about 2:50 p.m. near the inter­sec­tion of Boyl­ston and Exeter streets. Bloody spec­ta­tors were car­ried away from the area, and wit­ness­es said sev­er­al vic­tims lost limbs.

“Peo­ple start­ed throw­ing down the bar­ri­cade and run­ning over one anoth­er. I lit­er­al­ly saw the garbage bar­rel explode, and I ran as fast as I could,” said one runner.

Boston police said two peo­ple died, and at least 22 were injured. Many tired and scared run­ners were seen wan­der­ing around the area, des­per­ate to find loved ones.

Boston police said that with­in the last hour, there was an addi­tion­al explo­sion at the JFK Library, but there are no known casu­al­ties or injuries from that explo­sion. Police don’t know if that explo­sion is relat­ed to the first two, but they are treat­ing all the explo­sions as if they are linked (which makes sense).

Police have so far refused to con­firm the num­ber of casu­al­ties but the tra­di­tion­al media is report­ing that at least two are dead and twen­ty-eight injured. All those injured have been trans­port­ed away from the scene.

At this time, we don’t have a lot of sol­id infor­ma­tion about this inci­dent, or who is respon­si­ble. But it appears these blasts were an act of ter­ror­ism, not an acci­dent, giv­en that there were mul­ti­ple explo­sions all in the same vicin­i­ty, and all dur­ing the after­noon of a pub­lic hol­i­day (Patri­ot’s Day) in Mass­a­chu­setts, when there are tra­di­tion­al­ly a lot of peo­ple downtown.

Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Deval Patrick has asked peo­ple to go home (or back to their hotel rooms) and avoid con­gre­gat­ing in crowds.

The White House says that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has been noti­fied and has direct­ed his admin­is­tra­tion to pro­vide what­ev­er assis­tance that Mass­a­chu­setts needs.

FOR MORE: The Boston Globe is live­blog­ging the after­math of the blasts.

EYEWITNESS VIDEO: A per­son who was near the explo­sions in Cop­ley Square has uploaded a short clip to YouTube. The clip begins right after the first explo­sion and shows reac­tion to the sec­ond. The Boston Globe, mean­while, has graph­ic footage of both of the explo­sions. Be warned: It’s not for the faint of heart.