【Dear Utol (2025): Kilay is Life Episode 42】

Durian,Dear Utol (2025): Kilay is Life Episode 42 the pungent (and highly polarising) fruit has often caused people to dry-retch when its odour hits their nostrils, but over the weekend, the fruit caused an entire police-assisted evacuation.

In Australia, approximately 500 students and teachers were evacuated from Melbourne's RMIT university on Saturday, after a "smell of gas" was reported within the library. Turns out, it was just a rotten durian fruit.

According to a statement from Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Brigade, firefighting crews were called to the campus just after 3 p.m., and an evacuation was managed by Victoria Police as a precaution while "an investigation was launched into the source of the smell."

The library, known to store "potentially dangerous chemicals" according to the MFB (yeah, someone look into that please), was searched, and firefighters identified the smell not as chemical gas, but gas generated by the offending durian, described as "an extremely pungent fruit which had been left rotting in a cupboard."

Once it found its way out of the cupboard, the smell moved into the library's air conditioning system and ran amok. Durian fruit, often described as having the smell of gym socks or rotting meat, has been banned on Singapore's public trains. You can see why Melbourne students freaked.

Dramatically, the troublesome, rotten durian will be managed by the Environment Protection Authority. The library has now reopened and hopefully staff and students are getting a big memo on leaving certain stinky fruits at home. RMIT representatives told Mashable, "We apologise for any inconvenience caused to those on campus."

The whole thing polarised Twitter, with some folks lamenting the waste of good durian, and others empathising with those evacuated.

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Now that is pungent.