At least one person was injured on Thursday when packages delivered to US state government buildings detonated, with one of them flaring and another giving off smoke, officials and local media said. Maryland's WTOP radio initially reported explosions at a government building at the state capital Annapolis and at a Department of Transportation building in the eastern part of the state.

But a local official declined to confirm that the packages had exploded and the radio station later said that they appeared to have fizzled.

"I cannot confirm an explosion," Phil McGowan, spokesman for the Annapolis mayor, told AFP. "Our mayor received notice at about 1250 (1750 GMT) that city fire crews responded to the Jeffrey Building (next to the state capitol) for a package device that injured a mail room employee."

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011