On Friday morning (Oct 15), several firefighters from the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) Fire & Rescue received a report about a gas leak near Dickson, an inner suburb in Canberra.
According to updates posted on its Emergency Services website, the firefighters were able to locate the source of the supposed ‘gas leak’ within an hour.
The twist? It was all thanks to the notorious durian.
It wasn’t a gas leak, but in fact a durian fruit. The fruit gives off a very pungent smell and can waft some distance.”
Durians: A hazardous chemical?
While it’s not everyday that you get to see a fruit being issued a hazmat warning, this isn’t the first time durians have made the headlines due to its pungent smell.
Update – HAZMAT (Gas Leak) – Dickson Shopshttps://t.co/9MUokP6rcY pic.twitter.com/srkb0zfKMN
— ACT ESA (@ACT_ESA) October 15, 2021
According to The Washington Post, 500 students were ordered to evacuate from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s campus library in 2018 due to a ‘chemical hazard alert’, where authorities realised that a rotting durian was to blame for the false alarm.
An eternal love-hate relationship
On Twitter, many netizens were amazed by the durian’s ability to draw the hazmat team out through its smell alone. One even remarked that he thought the entire incident was “a joke”.
On Facebook however, it seemed that netizens could smell what was coming from a mile away, with one aptly summing up durians in all its pungent glory in this sentence: “Tastes like heaven smells like hell!”
Could you imagine the firefighters coming to Malaysia? They would be very busy all year round!
Cover Images via ACT Emergency Services Agency
Proofreader: Sarah Yeoh
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