UPDATE: Hazmat teams investigating small explosion at U.Va.

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- A chemical incident that blew open a storage cabinet at 4 p.m. today in the University of Virginia's Wilsdorf Hall should not be characterized as an explosion but as a “spill,” a U.Va. spokeswoman says. No one was injured.

Marian Anderfuren, director of media relations at U.Va., said the latest information suggests that containers filled with nitric and hydrochloric acid were still intact, meaning that they did not explode. Instead, she said, it appears that chemicals somehow spilled and blew the storage cabinet’s door open.

“The containers being intact argues against it being an explosion,” she said. “It is being characterized as a spill, probably with a very loud noise.”

Eyewitnesses said they heard a loud “boom” and saw a cloud of yellow smoke and brownish fluid flowing from a metal cabinet in lab 311 of Wilsdorf.

Wilsdorf was evacuated and the university diverted traffic around the area near the hall on McCormick Road this evening.