MENLO PARK — The FBI said the suspicious package that triggered a major emergency response and evacuations at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park did not contain any dangerous substances.
The agency said Tuesday that investigators "thoroughly tested the items in question and determined them to be non-hazardous."
The emergency response lasted for 14 hours and four buildings were evacuated after employees at a mail sorting facility on Facebook’s campus called 911 Monday morning. The employees reported that a machine had detected sarin, an extremely dangerous nerve agent, in a bin of mail from the USPS.
San Mateo County's Hazardous Material Response Unit, the FBI, USPS and California National Guard’s Civil Support Team, which specialized in dealing with chemical, biological and radiological incidents, handled the response.
They swept the entire building and by 1 a.m. Tuesday had placed the suspect mail bin in a containment vessel. It was removed from the building and transported to another facility in the East Bay.
While it had been reported that two people were exposed to the package, Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said that was not the case.
"There was never a medical component to this thing," he said.
Employees were evaluated but workers who handled the bin did not show any symptoms and no injuries have been reported.
It is not clear at this time why the machine reported sarin. The test was part of the routine processing of incoming mail, officials said.
Written by Jessica Yi.
