Depot powder 'was sand'

All the postal staff were moved into the car park

Six people are being released from hospital after a substance discovered at Liverpool's main sorting office was found to be sand.

The building was evacuated on Tuesday when the substance was spotted leaking from an item of mail.

The powder was taken for laboratory testing but proved harmless.

Merseyside Police said the package was opened in controlled conditions and its contents were found to be "totally innocent" and did not contain the anthrax bacteria.

A chemical incident unit was set up

The Copperas Hill sorting office is located in Liverpool city centre, not far from Lime Street railway station.

Staff left the premises while tests were carried out on the powder and mail deliveries were interrupted.

Six Royal Mail workers were taken to a decontamination van outside the building.

They were later transferred to Fazakerley Hospital as a precaution but were later being released, said a police spokesman.

One of the directors of Public Health in Merseyside, Dr John Reid, said: "We would like to stress to members of the public again that there have been no cases of anthrax in the UK as a result of the situation in the US.

"But we, along with our partner agencies, will continue to monitor the situation very closely."