Delivery of suspicious int'l parcels suspended after 3 hospitalized

This photo provided by Daejeon Metropolitan Police shows a package from Malaysia that arrived at a restaurant in Daejeon, July 21. Yonhap

Korea Post temporarily suspended delivery of suspicious international packages, as concerns were growing over some parcels suspected of containing an unidentified hazardous material.

The move followed a flurry of reports nationwide of unidentified parcels arriving from Taiwan in recent days.

On Thursday, three people at a welfare center for the disabled in the southeastern port city of Ulsan who unpacked one such parcel suffered dizziness and difficulty breathing.

The three people have been admitted to the hospital and are now said to be in stable condition.

While medical tests did not immediately reveal what caused the symptoms, police did not rule out a toxic chemical agent.

The parcel has been sent to the Agency for Defense Development for further analysis.

The police said the name of the recipient and the phone number written on the parcel were invalid.

Authorities also found a similar package around 6 p.m. Friday while sorting out parcels at a post office in the same city. Fire officials were dispatched to the scene and are assessing the damage.

Similar reports have also come from Seoul, Yongin in Gyeonggi Province, Jeju Island, Haman in South Gyeongsang Province and Daejeon.

Some 1,700 people were temporarily evacuated from Korea Post headquarters in downtown Seoul on Friday, after a suspicious yellow parcel was discovered on the first floor of the 21-story building.

No casualties have been reported so far.

Minister of Science and ICT Lee Jong-ho canceled his scheduled attendance at a talk with Andrew Ng, a prominent artificial intelligence researcher and computer science professor at Stanford University, on Friday night to monitor the situation.

A person on Jeju Island contacted the authorities about receiving a suspicious parcel on July 11, which had been sent from Taiwan and contained two plastic bottles. The person threw them away, but later reported them to the police on Thursday after hearing about the suspicious package in Ulsan.

A suspicious parcel spotted in Haman was sent from Malaysia, police said. The recipient had kept the parcel for about two months and reported it to the police, also after learning about the Ulsan parcel.

Authorities asked for vigilance if a suspicious package arrives, and called on recipients not to open them and report them to authorities instead.

They said the color of such packages could be yellow or black, and could have "CHUNGHWA POST" written on them. The sender could be P.O. Box 100561-003777, Taipei, Taiwan. (Yonhap)