A TOY GRENADE has been blamed for an evacuation at a building near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, local authorities have said.

The police bomb squad was called to 2 World Financial Center in lower Manhattan at midday when a security guard reported a package that seemed suspicious. Brookfield Properties, which runs the property, ordered an evacuation as a precaution.

Employees in business suits filed calmly back into the building after the New York Police Department declared the situation all clear about 90 minutes later.

Police said there was no threat, and no criminal investigation is taking place.

The bomb squad determined the package was a fake explosive that looked like a 1940s-style pineapple grenade. It was mounted on a plaque that said ‘Complaint department: Take a number’, with a number attached to the pin.

It was addressed to someone at one of the financial institutions housed there and discovered by someone in the mail room.

The evacuated building houses major financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, Nomura Securities, Deloitte, Commerzbank and Oppenheimer Funds Inc.

A Nomura Securities spokesman said one of the company’s employees was responsible for bringing the fake explosive into the building and that that person was being placed on administrative leave pending an internal review.

Several employees said an announcement came over the building loudspeakers telling them to evacuate as quickly as possible.

Octavio Diaz was wearing a neon yellow backpack as he helped lead his colleagues out of the building to a nearby volleyball court, where they waited until the all-clear. ”Stuff like this happens, so you’ve got to take it seriously,” he said. “We’re ready to go.”

The building is near the World Trade Center site, where the September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people. A 1993 bombing there killed six people and injured more than a thousand.