US Consulate Office in China Temporarily Closes Due to White Substance UPDATED

Hat tip to a reader for sharing this information in our comment section. The US Embassy website says it will be closed through May 17, 2013.

“A U.S. consulate in China was forced to suspend some operations after an envelope was found containing a suspicious white power.

The envelope was discovered Monday by a staffer in the office that issues visas and handles American citizen services in the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. The consulate posted a notice on its website saying that the office would be closed through Wednesday, but an official at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it is possible that it will be longer.

“That office has temporarily suspended operations until an investigation is completed,” Nolan Barkhouse, an embassy spokesman, said Tuesday. There was no indication anybody was injured by the substance in the envelope, he said, but “all precautionary measures have been taken for handling this kind of situation.”

According to an article in the Yangcheng Evening News, the envelope was discovered in a staff section of the consulate not open to the public. A bag containing powder was broken and the substance spilled onto the clothing of a staff member. The office was evacuated and the substance sent out to a laboratory to be tested.

The consulate in Guangzhou is one of the busiest in the consular service handling most immigrant visas and adoptions from China.

Since 2001, when letters poisoned with anthrax killed five people in the U.S., there have been thousands of hoaxes involving letters sent with white powder.”

U.S. consulate office in China closes after white powder is found

[Los Angeles Times 3/14/13 by Barbara Demick]

“An office at the American consulate general in Guangzhou has been closed indefinitely after an employee found some suspicious powder in an envelope.

“On Monday, we found an unidentified substance in an envelope and we are now carrying out an investigation,” said a consulate employee who wished to remain anonymous. “The office which was affected is closed, but not all the consulate offices are closed,” he added.

The envelope was found at the consular section at the Tianyu Garden Building in Tianhe district, which handles visa applications and provides assistance to US citizens in southern China, the employee revealed.

The unidentified powder was discovered “in an area not accessible to the public” and precautionary measures were taken, he said.

“The front-desk service is closed, but some teams still operate without going to the office,” the employee said.

The consular section was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, the consulate said on its website on Tuesday.

A two-day closure of the consular section could on average affect some 1,800 visa applications. The consulate general handles 121,000 visa applications per year, according to its website.

Consular services “will resume as soon as we have completed our investigation in accordance with all our established procedures to handle this type of situation,” Nolan Barkhouse, press spokesman at the US embassy in Beijing, said.

“We have notified Chinese authorities and we maintain close contact in case any assistance becomes necessary,” Barkhouse said, adding that no one had been injured.

It is understood that the powder is not being tested in the mainland and that the person who was in contact with the powder did not show any signs of poisoning.

Suspicious white powder had previously been discovered at the Guangzhou consulate general, one person familiar with the situation said.

The now closed facility has 30 interviewing windows for 23 American staff and 100 locally-employed staff.

The consulate serves the provinces Guangdong, Hainan and Fujian and the Guangxi Autonomous Region.”

Suspicious powder found at US consulate in Guangzhou

[South China Morning Post 5/14/13 by Patrick Boehler and Jing Li and Mimi Lau]

Adoptive Family Stories

Chicago Family

“A suburban family who went to China to adopt a little girl was supposed to come home Thursday.

[WGN TV 5/15/13]

The family in the WGN piece is a Reece’s Rainbow, blogging family and you guessed it…they are fundraising through PayPal for the money to replace the dossier contents that have to be replaced due to contamination. Our commenter shared this link.

Boston Family

“An Arlington family adopting their second Chinese daughter say they are trapped and cooped up in a hotel in the southern city of Guangzhou, China.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The consulate has been closed since Monday because a staff member opened up an envelope with a suspicious white powder.

“Apparently, the white powder went all over their clothes or the computer or something like that, so they locked down the building,” Antonelli said.

The children both have a rare life-threatening blood disorder — beta thalassemia major — that requires regular blood transfusions. Emmy is scheduled for a transfusion next Wednesday.

Antonelli requested children with the disease because she suffers from a milder form of it.

“There’s just a lot of anxiety for everybody. Just being here, being away, coming to China to adopt a child is absolutely not a vacation,” she said.”

Consulate lockdown traps family coping with life-threatening disease

[WCVB 5/15/13 by Amalia Barreda]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: The comments are unusually brutal towards the adoptive parents. They picked up on the entitlement. Yes, when you are abroad, you do need to factor in that a terror attack could occur. You are not the only Americans there and you don’t hold a special privilege above any other US citizen. The APs asked about the Consulate having a contingency plan when it is the AP that needs to have a contingency plan, especially if one is adopting a sick child. And notice they don’t question why their agency didn’t assist them with medical issues.  Hint: Agencies never do even though they claim to be “for the children.” PAPs pay tens of thousands of dollars for services yet when critical services are needed, they are never there.

““We heard that it was one of these white powder scares and then they told us that the Consulate was closed,” Tracy Antonelli said at her home in Arlington.

Antonelli and her husband Patrick Mooty were there adopting their second child, 2 ½ year old Rosalie. “There was chatter among the other families that if it was anthrax we could be here for months,” Patrick said. “Nobody wanted anybody to go into a building that wasn’t safe to go into. We all just kept asking why there wasn’t a backup plan,” Tracy added.

 

The couple had gone to the Consulate last Monday and was told to come back on Tuesday. Shortly after they left, they found out about a suspicious envelope with a white powder that shut the office down. For the next three days, they waited with no answers. “So, we would get an email that said still closed it is going to open but we don’t know when,” she explained.

 

Thursday, they got a break. “I happened to be sitting by the computer and an email came and said for people who didn’t have interviews you need to be at the consulate in an hour and so we’d already had ours,” she said. “It was a few hours later that they sent out a final email that said okay all of the people that were interviewed on Monday your visas are going to be ready tomorrow (Friday).”

“By then, the couple had been in China two and a half weeks. Their urgency had to do with medical care. “I was with two children who needed to come home and be seen at Children’s Hospital,” Tracy said. “The medical care was the critical issue,” Patrick added.

Emmiline, whom the couple adopted in January of 2012, and Rosalie both have thalassemia, a blood condition that can require transfusions. Rosie had an appointment scheduled at Boston Children’s Hospital last Thursday. Emmy had one this week. But their children weren’t the only ones where time was of the essence. “I actually heard a story of one mother who said that her daughter’s lips were blue from her heart condition and she needed to get her home to the U.S. to be evaluated,” Tracy recalled.

There were also families getting into financial difficultly. “We noticed there were some families who’d also been stranded who posted that they needed help from their churches and their congregations,” Patrick said.”

 

Arlington Family Speaks Out About Adoption Ordeal In China

[CBS Boston 5/21/13 by Bobby Sisk]

Update 2: Now the Consulate is moving to a new location. DOS issued a notice. See here and is pasted below:

“Notice:  New Location for Consulate General Guangzhou

The U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, which processes all U.S. immigrant visas in China, will be moving to the Zhujiang New Town area of Guangzhou.  This spacious and modern facility will house consular services for visa applicants and for U.S. citizens.  The Consulate General will suspend operations on or about July 15, and will resume adoption-related visa services by appointment on July 24.

In order to complete timely processing of current cases and to ensure that services continue smoothly, the Consulate General’s Adopted Children’s Immigrant Visa Unit (ACIVU) will maintain the following schedule of services:

• July 5—Last day for Letter Seeking Confirmation submissions until resumption of services.  All LSCs submitted by this date will be returned on July 12.
• July 11—Last day for adopted children’s immigrant visa interviews until resumption of services.
• July 12—Last day to pick up issued visas, Article 5 packets, and other processed documents until resumption of services.
• July 24—Adoption-related visa services resume at new facility.

Families and Adoption Service Providers are advised to incorporate this schedule into their planning for submitting documents, scheduling visa interviews, and determining travel dates.

For updates, please check the U.S. Consulate Guangzhou web site or adoption.state.gov.  You may also contact the ACIVU staff at GuangzhouA@state.gov if you have any questions“