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Fire drill sparks panic in Sharjah

A run down car had been deliberately set on fire as part of the practice session, but unaware of the mock drill, people made frantic calls to Khaleej Times that the City Centre had been set on fire. Even radio stations made announcements as news of the ‘so-called fire’ spread.

Mohan S., who lives in a nearby area, said, “I saw fire in the parking lot of the City Centre and thought that there was a rampage and people were burning down cars. Soon after I also saw people running and trucks from the Civil Defence dousing the fire, so my suspicions were confirmed.”

He admitted that by the time the whole incident became clear to him, he had called up several of his friends and informed them of the incident.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Ali Saeed Al Ali, Operations Officer, Sharjah Civil Defence, who was supervising the drill, said, “There is no reason for people to panic because this a normal drill that is carried out regularly by the Civil Defence Unit. The last one that we carried out was held at Etisalat.”

Giving the reason for holding the drill in a public place, he said that the exercise and training session is meant to be as real as possible. “We are carrying out these drills for the people and therefore they have to be real. So we chose different public places and enact the scenes as close as they could be in real life,” he explained, saying that Sharjah City Centre had an evacuation/exit system that was much better than several other buildings in the emirate.

Al Ali also said that the drill that was carried out by a team, included doctors from Al Qasimiya Hospital, while an ambulance was also kept on standby. “We simply want to test our skills and find out how prepared we are,” he added.

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