Explosion rocks warehouse at U.S. military base in Japan

An explosion rocked a warehouse at a U.S. military base in Sagamihara, Japan, but there were no reports of injuries, Japanese fire officials said on Monday.

The local fire department said it received a call just after midnight of an explosion at a U.S. Army depot where it said “dangerous material” is stored and sent firefighters.

It added that the fire had subsided and there was no danger of it spreading since there were no adjacent buildings. The cause of the fire was not immediately known, the fire department said.

In Washington, U.S. Navy Commander Bill Urban said the blast was at a building at the U.S. Army Sagami General Depot in Sagamihara, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo.

“There are no reports of injury, and base firefighters and first responders are currently fighting the resulting fire to prevent its spread to nearby buildings,” Urban said in an emailed statement.

A U.S. Army spokesman said the building did not in fact store any hazardous material.

“The building that exploded was not a hazardous material storage facility. We are in the process of determining the contents of the building. The depot does not store ammunition or radiological materials,” Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Toner told Reuters in an email.

He added that no troops lived at the depot, where an estimated 200 personnel work in the daytime.