By Associated Press - Tuesday, October 30, 2018

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Several West Virginia Capitol offices and storage rooms have been evacuated after a structural problem was discovered near the rotunda.

State Department of Administration spokeswoman Diane Holley-Brown told the Charleston Gazette-Mail on Monday the rooms were vacated as a precaution after engineers found damage to internal partition clay tile walls in the walls adjacent to the rotunda. They were originally installed to function as firewalls, and the damage has caused some tiles to break loose and pose a potential safety risk.

Holley-Brown says engineers don’t know what caused the damage. She says the building’s age is likely one factor, but another could be the Charleston-area earthquake in 2011.

The repairs to the walls shouldn’t affect the timetable for work to fix water damage to several panels on the interior dome.

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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, http://wvgazettemail.com.

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