The stench that nearly swallowed Susan Rice’s big day

The U.N. headquarters was evacuated today after a noxious odor fueled fears of a potential dangerous gas leak. The stench, it turned out, was caused by gas of a different sort: a broken sewage system filled Turtle Bay with the smell of human waste.

The temporary shutdown disrupted a heavily promoted youth event that Susan E. Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was hosting in the Security Council. For days, Rice’s press staff had been appealing reporters to attend the event, which had in attendance more than 300 kids from New York City public schools and from schools in Austria, China and Germany.

But reporters were turned out of the building at around the same time the event was scheduled to take place. At the time, U.N. officials and security guards said that they believed emergency workers were trying to establish the source of what they believed was a gas leak.

Later, the U.N. spokesman, Farhan Haq, told reporters that the smell was caused by a sewage buildup caused by rising tides from the East River, which runs alongside the landmark U.N. headquarters building. "Several floors of the General Assembly building had been evacuated this morning because of an unidentified odor," he said.  "Host country authorities, including from the New York Fire Department helped to identify the cause of the odor, which was determined to be the result of high tides in the East River backing up sewage near the building. The gas released as a result was determined not to be harmful."

But Rice was not to be deterred. She tracked down the chief fire marshal to find out whether the event could take place. The scheduled venue for the meeting, the U.N. Security Council, was out of the question. (It had also been a controversial choice to begin with, as some member states objected to its use for the purposes of what some viewed as essentially a PR event.)

But an alternative chamber was located in the U.N. temporary building on the U.N.’s North Lawn, where U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki moon is working until a massive renovation of the headquarters building is completed.

The event, scheduled for 10 am, was rescheduled for 11:30. The kids arrived, together with members of the Security Council, and Ban.

"What a way to start the day. We had hoped for a smooth and picturesque setting in the Security Council, but fate was not on our side," said Rice, thanking the gathering for showing flexibility by attending the unusual meeting. "This type of informal meeting is not what we usually do, but in my view it’s one of the most important events of the month-long presidency of the United States of the Security Council in December."

The U.S., which holds the rotating presidency of the council, showed a series of three videos made by teenagers in Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Venezuela. The films raised questions about the link between poverty and terrorism, described the challenges facing the young in one of Central Africa deadliest conflicts, and underscored the need to spend more money on social development and less on weapons.

(The event was not without controversy though: France blocked the showing of one video by a German teenager that promoted nuclear disarmament, while Russia blocked another, and African leaders objected to the showing of a video depicting classic scene of poor African refugees, on the ground its reinforced negative African stereotypes.)

Afterwards it was off to the U.S. mission for pizza.

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