This story has been edited from its original version.
Twice this morning, a fire alarm halted all studies in a Ball State building.
The alarm in the Hargreaves Music Building went off around 10:50 a.m. when a maintenance worker found smoke in the tunnels under the building, according to police radio traffic.
Jim Lowe, director of Engineering, Construction and Operations at Ball State, said the smoke that was smelled by students and faculty in the Music Technology Building is related to an evacuation of the Arts an Journalism building at about 9:30 a.m., and smoke smelled in the Teachers College this morning.
"All those buildings are connected by a tunnel," Lowe said. "What happened was that smoke was entering the tunnel by what we call the Riverside tunnel into the basement of the music building."
Lowe said there was an electrical junction that appears to have shorted out near a bundle of communications cables that caught fire, causing smoke to flow out of the tunnel and into the buildings that it connects.
Lowe added that the cables burned were not in operation and smoke has stopped flowing from the tunnel.
John Scheib, director of the School of Music, said he was in the building at the time the alarm sounded.
"People smelled something burning and they called the police who came through with the fire department and smelled it as well so they tripped the fire alarm," Schreib said. "It was pretty prime time for classes. Both buildings were evacuated. Most classrooms were full so it was a couple hundred people at least."
Lowe said the tunnel connecting the buildings also houses communication systems, steam lines and chilled water lines.
Students and faculty were allowed back inside the Music Technology Building at 11:01 a.m. and all buildings have returned to normal operation.
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