Bomb threat prompts evacuation of 3 USC buildings as threats are also called in to MIT, NYU

A bomb threat prompted authorities to briefly evacuate three buildings on the USC campus Thursday afternoon.

Grace Ford Salvatori Hall, Sample Hall and Wallis Annenberg Hall were evacuated while Los Angeles police and campus Department of Public Safety officers searched the buildings, according to a tweet sent on the University of Southern California’s official account shortly after 4:30 p.m.

Students and others were warned to stay away from the area.

Officers declared the buildings safe and normal business resumed, according to a follow-up tweet by the campus account around 5 p.m.

The threat came around the same time as similar threats prompted evacuations at New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Authorities initially evacuated three buildings at NYU and later evacuated a fourth, according to campus alerts.

MIT campus police said in a tweet that they evacuated one building, determined there was no threat after a search, and reopened the building.

Information on whether the threats were related was not available Thursday night.