40 New Brunswick tourists stuck in Boston during manhunt

A Fredericton travel agent is in the Boston area on Friday with 40 tourists as a massive manhunt is underway for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Tom McGinn said his tour group woke up on Friday morning to news that police were searching for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, in an area about 10 kilometres from their hotel.

The travel group left the hotel before much of Boston was locked down as the manhunt continued and is now in Wrentham, an area about 60 kilometres southwest of the city.

He said the bus ride through Boston was very odd en route to Wrentham.

"Travel through Boston, it was pretty well a ghost town. Friday morning it is normally bustling and trafficked is backed up. It reminded me of a Sunday morning," he said.

Some members of the travel group have plans to watch a Boston Bruins hockey game on Friday night and a Boston Red Sox baseball on Saturday.

McGinn said those plans may be in jeopardy depending on the outcome of the manhunt.

"Nobody is panicking. Everyone is aware of the situation. We had some people today who wanted to go spend the day in Boston sightseeing, naturally they are not going to do that," he said.

• See a map depicting how the Boston manhunt unfolded

"Hopefully, when we get back into Boston later this afternoon, things will have cooled off and they will have found the guy they are looking for and bring things back to a little more calmness."

The search started Thursday night when the two suspects killed a MIT police officer and threw explosives at a police car during a chase and gun battle.

One of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed overnight.

The younger brother is still at large and is considered armed and dangerous.

The lockdown, which initially applied to just a number of areas and neighbourhoods west of Boston, was extended to the whole city Friday morning.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Boston residents, as well as people in the surrounding areas of Watertown, Cambridge, Waltham and Belmont, should stay inside their homes and open the door only if a properly identified police officers is there.

The entire Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has also been suspended. Police have asked that businesses remain closed until the man can be apprehended.