CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Four buildings on Harvard University’s campus near Boston were evacuated Monday and final exams were canceled after the school’s police department received an unconfirmed report that explosives may have been placed inside.
Final exams had begun in three of the buildings when officials ordered them evacuated, shortly after 9 a.m. A freshman dormitory was also evacuated.
There were no explosions and no indication that explosive had been found more than four hours later, when two of the buildings Thayer Hall and Emerson Hall were reopened. Searches, involving five different law enforcement agencies, continued at the two other buildings.
Gates to the campus, known as Harvard Yard, were closed and later opened only to students who could show identification.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the buildings have been evacuated while the report is investigated,” the school said in a statement. “Harvard’s focus is on the safety of our students, faculty and staff.”
President Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, was briefed about the incident.
Sophomore Santiago Pardo said by phone that he and his roommate were keeping close tabs on the situation from their dorm, Adams House, which is not near Harvard Yard.
“We feel safe,” he said. “We’re not scared.”
University officials said students would be notified when the canceled exams would be rescheduled. They did not confirm reports that an the evacuations were prompted by an anonymous e-mail tip.
A hoax about a gunman also forced a brief evacuation at the nearby University of Massachusetts Boston on Monday. The alert was canceled and the report was declared false within minutes.
Last month, another Ivy League school, Yale University in Connecticut, was locked down for nearly six hours while authorities investigated a phone call saying an armed man was heading to shoot it up, a warning they later said was likely a hoax.
And in February, someone called in a hoax about a gunman on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, another elite school about two miles from Harvard. The university said the gunman was a staff member looking for revenge after the suicide of an Internet activist accused of illegally using MIT computers.