JEDDAH, 11 May 2005 — Twenty-three girl students of Um Al-Qura University in Makkah were hospitalized yesterday for inhaling smoke after their hostel caught fire, the Civil Defense Department said. Nobody was killed or wounded in the incident, it added.
“Some 20 students were trapped on the fifth and sixth floors of the hostel as the trained staff could not evacuate them as a result of intense smoke and the dangerous situation,” the department said, adding that other students were evacuated by the staff.
The department’s firefighters and rescue teams arrived at the site soon after the fire broke out and evacuated the 20 girls using ladders and other devices. Three teams from the health department and six units of Saudi Red Crescent also took part in the rescue operation.
“The fire broke out at the entrance of one of the apartments just after Fajr prayer and the dorm supervisor immediately called the civil defense and began evacuating the building,” Dr. Sheikha Ashour, deputy dean of resident affairs at the university, told Arab News.
This is the third major fire in Makkah involving girl students in the last three years. In October last year, 22 schoolgirls were injured in a stampede in Um Salamah Qur’an Memorization School as they rushed to leave after a fire broke out. There were 250 students, mostly Africans. In March 2002, authorities sacked the head of girls’ education after 15 teenage girls burned to death and nearly 50 others were injured in a fire at their school.
“It is not clear yet what caused the fire but the civil defense is investigating,” Ashour said. “The fire did not cause much damage and the most important thing is that it did not cause any sort of injuries to students residing in the building,” she added.
The company that provides transportation to the students bussed them to other apartment buildings.
The university runs five hostels for female students. Three are located adjacent to one another, while the fourth is in a nearby locality. The fire broke out in the fifth building which is the farthest from the other four, in Al-Zahra district.
The 23 affected students were taken to King Abdul Aziz Hospital while four were given first-aid at the scene.
“At around 2 p.m. the civil defense finished questioning each one of the students at the hospital and I took them back myself to get their things from their apartments,” Ashour said.
“Even though the civil defense said it was safe for all the students to return to their apartments, I felt that it would be better for them to spend some time away from the scene of the accident, so they are staying with their peers in the other buildings,” she added.
Ashour commended the on-duty supervisor and the female guard at the hostel for a job well done as they evacuated the floors one by one in an orderly manner and called the civil defense immediately, who came right away and put the fire out.
