Mystery of fumes that put 16 Auckland workers in hospital

Seven days after workers staggered out of a central Auckland building suffering headaches, nausea and vomiting, investigations have been unable to find the source of the noxious fumes that caused their distress.

Sixteen Qantas staff were taken to Auckland City Hospital after inhaling fumes at the 16-storey Augusta House building at 19 Victoria St West last Thursday. They were monitored for up to eight hours before being discharged.

They were among 100 Qantas staff in the Auckland CBD building at the time, all of whom had health checks.

Qantas, WorkSafe NZ and property manager Bayleys have been looking into the cause of the incident.

"The cause of suspected contaminants at Augusta House … could not be
identified by the authorities on the day," Bayleys Property Services and landlord Heng Yue Victoria said today in a statement.

"There has been no suspected contamination since then, and we continue to co-operate with WorkSafe New Zealand."

At the time of the mid-morning incident, people were seen to be staggering out of the building like "zombies".

Police, firefighters and ambulance staff attended the incident.

The Fire and Emergency service said at the time that firefighters had discovered that a smell of fumes was coming from the air conditioning system.