A police station in Victoria’s north-west has been evacuated after police unwittingly brought a potentially volatile substance into the station, believing it to be drugs.
The white powder was seized from a crashed car found on the side of the Murray Valley highway near Lake Boga, 325km north of Melbourne, some time before 11.15pm Saturday.
The car had been abandoned and was discovered by members of the public, who flagged down police.
“Police searched the car in an attempt to determine the owner and located a possible explosive device and a powdered white substance believed at the time to be drugs,” Victoria police spokeswoman Leonie Johnson said.
Officers from the bomb response unit removed the suspect device and police took the powder back to the police station in Swan Hill for testing.
Johnson said the powder was found to be an “unknown volatile substance”. The station was evacuated as a precaution at 6.15am.
Police will not say what the powder was or how many people were in the station when the evacuation was called.
The closest active police station is at Nyah, about 28km away. Anyone who needed police in Swan Hill were asked to call the Nyah police station. The Swan Hill police station was evacuated just after 6am and reopened at 1pm on Sunday.
Inspector Dan Davidson said tests were still being conducted on the powder.
“We do believe it is a volatile substance and we don’t believe it’s a drug product, we’re unable to determine at this stage so further testing needs to be taken,” Davidson told the ABC.
He said police were questioning three people over the crash.
