DUNMURRY — The Police Service of Northern Ireland declared a security alert in the town of Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast early Sunday morning after a car bomb exploded near a police station. Homes in the vicinity were evacuated and members of the public were advised to avoid the area.

Social media videos showed a car on fire outside the police station. The car was reportedly hijacked prior to the explosion. No police officers were reported injured.

Police cordoned off the road outside the station after the blast, and a bomb disposal robot was deployed at the scene about one hour later. Debris from the explosion was scattered across the road, which remained closed. The police released no information about the motive for the attack.

"It is distressing and disturbing to wake up to the news that a car bomb exploded outside Dunmurry police station last night," Member of Parliament Sorcha Eastwood said. "A busy area, a car bomb left outside residential housing, small businesses and any number of people out and about on a Saturday night working or socialising. It is only through the grace of God that there are no casualties."

Last month, police said a crude but viable improvised bomb was used in an attempted attack on a Police Service of Northern Ireland station in Lurgan, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Dunmurry. Two masked men stopped a delivery driver, placed an improvised device in the trunk of his car and forced him at gunpoint to take the device to the police station. Police carried out a controlled explosion after about 100 homes were evacuated. Police said the Lurgan attack was likely carried out by dissident Republican groups in a "pathetic attempt to remain relevant and provoke fear."

Northern Ireland police stations have been sporadically targeted with attacks by splinter groups seeking to break away from the United Kingdom. The 1998 Good Friday Accords largely ended decades of violence between Republican groups opposed to British rule and those who wanted to maintain ties to the United Kingdom, establishing a Northern Ireland assembly with power sharing and cross-border cooperation between the Irish and Northern Irish governments. Dissident groups that oppose the peace process still carry out sporadic attacks. Car bombings were a frequent tactic during the Troubles, a conflict from 1968 to 1998 between Roman Catholic Republican groups seeking a united Ireland and Protestant Unionist groups seeking to remain part of the United Kingdom, in which over 3,600 people were killed and over 30,000 were injured.