Anthrax scares sweep Australia and Europe

SYDNEY, Australia -- Dozens of government workers in Australia were hosed down after their office received a letter containing white powder. A U.S. consulate received a similar scare and in Germany on Monday, officials were investigating a powdery substance found in the mailroom of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's offices.

Across Europe and elsewhere, anthrax scares sent some people to hospitals and others home early from work uncertain of whether they had been exposed to the spores.

No anthrax cases have yet been detected outside the United States, but a spate of letters containing suspicious substances or threatening inscriptions has kept authorities busy.

At the federal chancellery in Berlin, authorities sealed off the mailroom after two postal workers discovered white powder trickling out of an envelope. Schroeder wasn't in the sprawling downtown building at the time, officials said. Preliminary test results were expected Tuesday and Berlin fire chief Albrecht Broemme said he expected the tests would show no dangerous substances.

At the U.S. consulate in the southern Australian city of Melbourne, diplomats were evacuated for 45 minutes early Monday after a suspicious package was hand delivered there.

"We called the police ... they recommended that we evacuate the area ... just to be on the safe rather than the sorry side," U.S. Consul General David Lyon said.

In Ottawa, a section of the Canadian Parliament was closed off after an employee in the building broke out in a rash, possibly from handling an envelope that contained white powder. Officials said tests were being conducted to determine if the white powder contained anthrax.

In the northeastern Australian city of Townsville, workers were ordered out of a state government office and made to stand under water jets to ensure their clothes were not contaminated before being taken to hospital for checks.

Appealing for calm late Monday, Prime Minister John Howard said there was no evidence that any of the 16 reported scares in Australia involved anthrax or another biological agent.

"I'm told thus far the investigations have shown what are involved in these scares are hoaxes." But, he said, "it doesn't mean we can afford to be complacent."

Authorities in Australia warned people they faced up to seven years in prison if convicted of a terrorist hoax and in Belgium, lawmakers began toughening penalties for such pranks.

Began in Florida

The scare began in Florida on Oct. 4, when it was confirmed that a newspaper editor had contracted the inhaled form of the bacteria. He later died, the first such death in the United States since 1976. Twelve people in the United States have either contracted anthrax or been exposed to it.

In France, police evacuated 600 people from the offices of the French Space Agency and dozens of others at a financial institution, a school and a tax collection office in four separate scares Monday involving suspicious powder arriving in the mail.

A central police laboratory was examining the powder discovered at all four sites. Those who had touched the suspicious letters were taken to hospitals where 55 people were placed under observation. So far, no cases of anthrax have been diagnosed in France, Health Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

At a major newspaper in Lithuania's capital of Vilnius, police evacuated the offices after a suspicious white powder was found in a package mailed to the leading Respublika daily.

An employee who handled the small package, which had the word "jihad," or holy war, scrawled on it, was hospitalized as a precaution but showed no symptoms of exposure to a harmful substance, Respublika editor Jurate Skeryte said.

Police in Lisbon, Portugal, sealed off an entire block and sent five workers at a car repair shop to the hospital after an employee opened a package containing an unidentified white powder that irritated their skin.

The workers were released from hospital after being examined and a team of experts from the Defense Ministry was at the repair shop to analyze the powder.

In Basel, Switzerland, pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG said one of its employees had undergone medical tests after receiving a letter that contained an unidentified powder last Tuesday. He was being given antibiotics as a precaution, and checks were being made to see if other staff members had come into contact with the substance.

In Prague, the Czech Republic's nuclear authority was testing 31 letters and suspicious packages received in the past few days. Test results were expected in a couple of days.

England's Canterbury Cathedral reopened to visitors, a day after a worker said he saw a man dropping white powder in one of its chapels.

Germany's national postal service announced Monday it had intercepted five suspicious letters since late last week, three of which had already been determined harmless.

Police there were questioning a 32-year-old man who sent a suspicious letter to the Shelter Now aid organization, whose eight workers are on trial in Afghanistan for allegedly preaching Christianity.