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Panaca Explosions Kill One

A sheriff says a pair of explosions in a small Nevada town killed one person and prompted a request for a bomb unit to respond from Las Vegas, about 165 miles away.

Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said in a statement Thursday that the blasts occurred about 8 p.m. Wednesday in Panaca 

A sheriff's dispatcher says the blasts weren't at a business, and it didn't appear that anyone else was injured.

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Las Vegas police Lt. Carmen Donegan tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the department's ARMOR unit was sent Thursday to the scene. ARMOR stands for All Hazards Regional Multi-Agency Operations and Response.

Other department officials didn't immediately respond to messages.

The local Lincoln County Record reported that neighbors called it a car bomb.

A neighbor says a car was destroyed, homes were damaged and the bomber was killed in the blasts.

Richard Katschke says that the car bomb set off a blast that rocked his house and damaged homes next door to the targeted home.

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He said his own home had very minor damage and that his family is "very shaken but OK."

Katschke said the mother and children living in the targeted home were able to flee before the blast.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokeswoman Helen Dunkel said its Vegas-based agents are heading to the rural area to investigate the car explosion as part of a multi-agency task force that handles bomb investigations.