One dead after military arms depot explosion

MARACAY, Venezuela (AP):

A FIRE set off a series of explosions at a military arms depot on Sunday, killing one person and leading authorities to evacuate about 10,000 people from the area.

Residents were being evacuated from within a six-kilometre (four-mile) perimeter around the depot, Rafael Isea, governor of Aragua state where the city of Maracay is located, told state television.

"This is a preventive measure because the ammunition that was detonating is ammunition that has a powerful impact," Isea said.

The cause of the fire was unclear. State radio reported that firefighters were beginning to extinguish the blaze after a series of smaller explosions.

Soldiers and police blocked exits from a major highway that runs close to the arms depot. Clouds of thick, white smoke rose up from the area near the military facility, floating over green hills above Maracay, a city located 60 miles (100 kilometres) west of the capital, Caracas.

ball of fire

Yandry Rey, 30, who lives with her husband, a navy captain, and two children at a military base adjacent to the depot, said the explosions shook her house and woke her up, and that she saw a "ball of fire" when she opened the door just before the whole family fled.

"It seemed as though they were bombing us," she said as she sat alongside a highway drainage ditch with her children not far from the explosion site.

Rey said her husband later returned to the house and saw that the blasts had knocked off their front door and caused a ceiling to collapse.

"It was horrible," she said.

A woman nearby the depot was killed, probably by the explosions, Isea said. Three people were injured in traffic accidents amid the chaos that ensued from the blasts, he said.

Cavim, Venezuela's military arms manufacturer, said in a statement that authorities had surrounded the arms depot "to control the situation". The company said the explosion took place at 4:45 a.m. local time.

Information Minister Andres Izarra went on state television calling for calm and saying that authorities were tending to the situation.