(U-WIRE) DAVIS, Calif. (AP) – What was supposed to be a routine check for lab technicians at a University of California at Davis medical research facility turned tragic when they discovered that a heating system had malfunctioned in a room, killing seven research monkeys on Saturday.

Within 10 minutes of discovering the malfunction, a veterinarian arrived at the building and determined that two of the eight monkeys in the same room were still alive, according to Dallas Hyde, director of the California National Research Primate Center.

Hyde said the two monkeys were immediately put on fluids to treat the dehydration, but one of the monkeys had to be euthanized due to a kidney failure. The carcasses were frozen and will be disposed of at an incinerator in Utah.

The temperature in the rooms containing monkeys are usually held at around 75 degrees, Hyde said. According to what was recorded, the room had shot up to 115 degrees. The cause of the malfunction is still under investigation.

“There was supposed to have been a backup system to shut everything down, but that failed as well,” Hyde said.

The cynomolgus monkeys – or long-tailed Macaques – were housed in the Animal Resources Science building located at the south of campus, which served as an overflow space for the Primate Center, said UCD spokesman Andy Fell. They ranged from 5 to 8 years old.

“Those rooms [at the overflow building] didn’t have temperature alarms,” Fell said. “The other monkeys in neighboring rooms have been moved out to the Primate Center as a precaution.”

The 32 monkeys that were previously at the ARS building are now residing at the Primate Center’s quarantine space, where there are temperature monitoring systems as well as primate staff checking on the animals.

The monkeys at the overflow building were checked twice a day by the primate staff, in the evening and the morning. Hyde said lab technicians apparently recorded that they had checked the animals at about 3 p.m. on Friday, and again at 6 a.m. Saturday – just two hours prior to the discovery.

– Katy Tang