Suspicious powder temporarily shuts Reuters office Agence France-Presse

Published: Monday October 27, 2008





Print This Email This NEW YORK (AFP)  The Reuters news agency on Monday evacuated its New York newsroom after the delivery there of an envelope containing what later proved to be a harmless powder.



Police ordered the evacuation in central New York as a precaution after the company's managing editor for the Americas noticed a "puff of powder" from an envelope, Reuters said in a statement.



Nearly three hours later, authorities said the powder posed no danger and told employees they could resume work, Reuters spokeswoman Jolie Hunt said.



The scare followed a similar incident last week at The New York Times building, also in midtown Manhattan, and at branches of Chase bank.



The newspaper's lobby was closed for nearly four hours on October 22 after an employee opened an envelope containing a suspicious substance.



The substance was later deemed not hazardous, but three Times employees were asked to take showers as a precaution.



In 2001 letters containing anthrax killed five people and spread panic. Since then, police and fire officers have been called out on thousands of occasions to investigate suspicious mailings -- most of them harmless.



