Students, staff, and other workers were evacuated from a 500-foot area surrounding a natural gas line break for about 90 minutes.
UK spokesperson Carl Nathe said, "This was an orderly evacuation, an inconvenience, but a necessary precaution. Whenever you're dealing with natural gas, of course the potential is there for something to ignite. The fumes were readily apparent. There was about a 90-minute period where buildings in the area were evacuated."
The break occurred when a backhoe broke open the line on a construction site for a new dorm.
The evacuations included several dorms, academic buildings, and the campus library.
The break was sealed by gas crews without incident.
