A US State Department satellite visa office has been sealed after the discovery of a white powder, suspected to be anthrax, in an Indian passport.
An envelope containing the passport was opened at about 11 am on Thursday in the visa service unit on the seventh floor of a building in Columbia Plaza.
"The powder spilled from between the Indian passport's pages," fire department spokesman Alan Etter said.
Officials sealed off the floor and briefly quarantined about 20 employees while preliminary tests were conducted on
the powder. The tests found that the powder contained protein, leaving open the possibility that it could contain anthrax
spores, Etter said.
The workers were allowed to go home after it was found that they had suffered no ill effects, but the seventh floor remained off limits, he added.
The visa office is just one block from the main State Department building.
"There is no reason at all to believe that this is anything sinister," Etter said.
A State Department spokesman, Lou Fintor, said the office processes visas for validation and renewal. He said it was not unusual for the office to receive passports by mail.
Fintor said he did not expect operations to be disrupted significantly and the office's staff would return to work soon.
The FBI is having the powder tested by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weterman said initial field tests often produce 'false positives.'