WASHINGTON, May 26: The World Bank headquarters in Washington were evacuated Thursday after a nearby electrical transformer exploded and caught fire below the street a meter (yard) away from the building, witnesses and a Bank spokesman said. At around 1345 GMT, hundreds of people filed out of the building as police closed off streets around the World Bank, located a few blocks from the White House.

Helicopters flew over the area as firefighters took positions in front of a manhole from which thick black smoke emanated sporadically.

“There were manhole explosions,” said a police officer at the scene. World Bank spokesman Damian Milverton said the fire was sparked by the explosion of an electrical transformer.

The International Monetary Fund, the Bank’s sister institution located next door, was “operating normally,” the IMF said in a statement. Later police, using a loudspeaker, told World Bank employees they could return to the building in a couple of hours to pick up their belongings and then go home.

The IMF and World Bank beefed up their security measures following the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. —AFP