spiralling tensions<\/a> with the United States.<\/p>\nVideo footage obtained by Al Jazeera showed balls of fire and thick smoke coming from a structure next to a body of water in Caracas early on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s government, the Pentagon and White House have yet to comment.<\/p>\n
Citing sources, Al Jazeera\u2019s Lucia Newman, who is reporting from Santiago in Chile, said the explosion occurred near or around Fortuna, the main military base in Caracas.<\/p>\n
\u201cFortuna is a key military base there. A series of explosions were reportedly heard throughout the area followed by a blackout,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n
Our correspondent added that there is a \u201cpresumption\u201d that the US has something to do with the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know yet how this explosion happened. There is also a possibility that this is an act of an internal sabotage among elements of the military who are trying to oust President Nicolas Maduro,\u201d Newman noted.<\/p>\n
Sisi De Flavis, a journalist based in Caracas, told Al Jazeera that she heard what sounded like a huge truck crashing followed by an intense shaking of the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe skies started to lit up. Then there was a ball of orange fire glowing. You can still hear planes flying over right now, although there has not been any explosions since then,\u201d De Flavis told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press news agency reported at least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in the capital.<\/p>\n
An image published by AP also showed smoke rising at La Carlota airport following the series of explosions in the capital.<\/p>\n
People in various neighborhoods rushed to the streets. Some could be seen in the distance from various areas of Caracas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes in the distance,\u201d said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker told AP, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. \u201cWe felt like the air was hitting us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tensions have been rising in recent weeks in Venezuela after US President Donald Trump threatened to launch attacks on targets allegedly linked to drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Trump also revealed a strike on a docking area for alleged Venezuelan drug boats last week, in the first known attack on Venezuelan territory of the US campaign.<\/p>\n
The US president has repeatedly threatened ground strikes on drug cartels in the Latin American region, including Venezuela, which he has labelled \u201cnarcoterrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n
He has claimed, without providing evidence, that Venezuela\u2019s Maduro leads a trafficking organisation that aims to destabilise the US by flooding it with drugs.<\/p>\n
In an interview on Thursday, Maduro indicated that Venezuela was open to negotiating a deal with the US to combat drug trafficking, even as he remained silent on the reported CIA-led strike on Venezuelan soil.<\/p>\n
Maduro also claimed in the interview that the US is trying to topple his government and gain access to Venezuela\u2019s vast oil reserves through Washington\u2019s months-long sanctions and military pressure campaign.<\/p>\n
Asked point-blank if he confirmed or denied a US attack on Venezuelan soil, Maduro said: \u201cThis could be something we talk about in a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maduro has said the Trump administration\u2019s approach makes it \u201cclear\u201d that the US \u201cseek to impose themselves\u201d on Venezuela through \u201cthreats, intimidation and force\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BREAKINGBREAKING, The southern area of \u200cthe \u200ccity, \u2060near a major military \u200cbase, is reportedly without electricity. Explosions have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3140,3,21,19,22,20,25,24,18232],"class_list":["post-385061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}