A very smelly fruit sends six people to hospital and evacuates a post office

A German post office was forced to evacuate and six workers were taken to the hospital due to a suspicious, pungent package that turned out to contain a particularly smelly fruit.

About 60 people were cleared from the post office in Schweinfurt Saturday and 12 workers were treated for nausea, local media reported. Six ambulances, five first-responder cars, two emergency vehicles and three different fire departments were involved in the incident, Schweinfurt police said in a statement given to CNN.

"Due to the unknown content, it was initially unclear whether the suspect package posed a greater risk," the statement said.

Workers feared the package was releasing a harmful gas, but careful examination revealed the parcel contained four Thai durian fruits, Bayerischer Rundfunk reported.

The fruits were sent to a 50-year-old resident by a friend in Nuremberg, according to the outlet, and were eventually delivered to its intended recipient.

Durians are a divisive fruit from Asia and known for their strong aroma. To some, the fruits have a pleasant smell and taste, but others get more of a scent of "turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock," food writer Richard Sterling once wrote, according to Smithsonian magazine.

A mixture of chemicals in the fruit creates its unique scent, according to Smithsonian. In Singapore, the fruit is banned on some trains.

This is not the first time the durian has caused problems in public places.

Students at the University of Canberra in Australia evacuated last May after a suspected gas leak, only to realize a durian caused the smell, a statement on the library's Facebook page read. About 550 people were forced to leave the building in less than six minutes.

In 2018, an Indonesian flight was delayed after passengers complained of a foul smell from the fruit.

Tribune Content Agency