{"id":607345,"date":"2026-09-21T17:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T17:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607345\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T17:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T17:40:21","slug":"guests-allowed-back-in-hotel-after-toxic-gas-investigated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607345\/","title":{"rendered":"Guests allowed back in hotel after \u2018toxic\u2019 gas investigated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A central Dunedin hotel was\u00a0evacuated for hours\u00a0after \u201ctoxic\u201d gas\u00a0was detected in the basement of the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Emergency\u00a0services were called to the Scenic Hotel Dunedin City in Princes St just before 3pm on Monday and were on site until about\u00a08pm.<\/p>\n<p> <img alt=\"\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gas-2-210926-jpg.webp\" width=\"2789\" height=\"2292\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"narrow-format\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:cover;display:block;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;width:100%;height:100%\"\/><img alt=\"\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gas-2-210926-jpg.webp\" width=\"2789\" height=\"2292\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"wider-format\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:cover;display:block;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;width:100%;height:100%\"\/>Firefighters had to wear protective suits. Photo: Photo Peter Mcintosh <\/p>\n<p>Part of Princes and Dowling Sts were closed off for a number of hours.<\/p>\n<p>Fire and Emergency NZ Senior Station Officer Mark Leonard said a potential fault with a transformer created a \u201ctoxic\u201d gas\u00a0and the building was evacuated as a precaution.<\/p>\n<p> <img alt=\"\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gas-4-210926-jpg.webp\" width=\"4000\" height=\"1816\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"narrow-format\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:cover;display:block;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;width:100%;height:100%\"\/><img alt=\"\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gas-4-210926-jpg.webp\" width=\"4000\" height=\"1816\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"wider-format\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:cover;display:block;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;width:100%;height:100%\"\/>Fire crews were called to the Princes St hotel just before 3pm. Photo: Peter Mcintosh <\/p>\n<p>Firefighters in protective suits investigated the source of the gas.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Leonard could not say what the gas was, but it was \u201cpotentially hazardous\u201d, and a poisons centre in Australia had been contacted.<\/p>\n<p> <img alt=\"\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d80d4b65-6323-4d45-842b-1b38436af001-jpg.webp\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"narrow-format\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:cover;display:block;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;width:100%;height:100%\"\/><img alt=\"\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d80d4b65-6323-4d45-842b-1b38436af001-jpg.webp\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"wider-format\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:cover;display:block;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;width:100%;height:100%\"\/>Part of Princes St and Dowling St were cordoned off on Monday afternoon. Photo: Peter McIntosh <\/p>\n<p>Crews from St Kilda, Lookout Point, Roslyn, Dunedin and\u00a0Willowbank attended.<\/p>\n<p>A Fire and Emergency NZ\u00a0spokesman later said firefighters had taken air samples, and a\u00a0power company had inspected the site.<\/p>\n<p>By 8pm, they determined there was no danger and the building was handed back to the property owner.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Additional reporting by Allied Media\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A central Dunedin hotel was\u00a0evacuated for hours\u00a0after \u201ctoxic\u201d gas\u00a0was detected in the basement of the building.\u00a0 Emergency\u00a0services were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-607345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}