Powdery Find Empties Office

Nearly 100 people were evacuated from an Irvine office building Wednesday after a white, powdery substance found by a worker under his chair initially tested positive as a toxic substance, authorities said.

Further testing late Wednesday at the FBI’s lab in San Diego determined it to be “a benign substance” but did not identify it exactly, said Lt. Dave Freedland of the Irvine Police Department.

The 32-year-old worker, whose name was not released, called police, who instructed him to take the powder to the nearest fire station. A preliminary test indicated that it could have been ricin, a potentially deadly castor-bean extract that has been linked to bioterrorism attempts in the United States and elsewhere. Several additional tests were negative, but authorities evacuated the building as a precaution, said Lt. Sam Allevato of the Irvine police.

“There’s nothing confirmed yet,” Allevato said, but “we’re taking every precaution to assure that no one’s health is jeopardized. We’ve got haz-mat here, we’ve got the FBI here.”

He said his department was not treating the incident as a possible terrorist act.

About 1:30 p.m., 21 QuickStart Technologies employees who had been working near the unknown substance were taken to a holding area for decontamination procedures, but no one showed any symptoms of exposure, said Capt. Steve Miller, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority.

The 21 stripped off their clothing and washed with soap before putting on other clothes. About 75 people from another company in the same building were evacuated, but none underwent decontamination, authorities said.

Ricin, among the world’s most toxic natural substances, attacks the respiratory system and can kill within three days if ingested or inhaled in large amounts or injected into the bloodstream.

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Times staff writer Jack Leonard contributed to this report.