The University of Southern California was deemed safe after an unfounded bomb threat prompted evacuations on campus Thursday afternoon, officials said.
USC sent out an alert to students, faculty and staff just after 4:30 p.m., saying Grace Ford Salvatori Hall, Sample Hall and Wallis Annenberg Hall were being cleared out. By 5 p.m., officials said the evacuated buildings are safe and the buildings have reopened.
“Normal business has resumed,” USC said in a tweet.
Sky5 was overhead as students were seen shuffling back into the halls.
The Los Angeles Police Department and the USC Department of Public Safety conducted a search on campus.
Meanwhile, bomb threats also forced evacuations at New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Thursday.
“While similar threats have been called into or sent via social media to universities nationwide over the past week, we are collectively operating out of an abundance of caution and thoroughly inspecting the campus,” Cambridge Police said in a tweet Thursday.
Several other unfounded bomb threats were made over the weekend at Ivy League campuses, including Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities on Sunday. The campuses were deemed safe a few hours later.
And on Friday, a bomb threat at Yale forced the evacuation of several buildings and nearby businesses, but the university resumed normal operations later that day.