MAKKAH: The operations room in Makkah handled 360 inquiries and reports about various incidents in the first week of Ramadan, according to the commander of the operations room of the Civil Defense in Makkah Capt. Waleed Abu Shanab.
He said on Thursday that the electronic sensing system specified for the seven residential towers at the King Abdul Aziz Endowment in Makkah, the first of its kind in the Middle East, has been instrumental in creating increased accessibility between the public and the Civil Defense. The week’s tally of inquiries has raised the number of such reports to 2,000 in one month.
“The operations room is the lifeline of the Civil Defense departments. It receives information about any incident, decides its location and dispatches concerned units to deal with it,” he said.
According to Capt. Abu Shanab, the operations room receives reports in many ways including:
The telephone number 998. When a call is received, the staff of the operations room automatically locates the caller and the venue of the incident using a geographical mapping system.
Many government departments are connected through a hotline. The moment this line buzzes, the incident locations will be decided and concerned units dispatched.
A wireless communications system is used only by participating organs, such as the Saudi Electricity Company, the municipality, the Department of Health Affairs, the Red Crescent and the Ministry of Haj. Civil Defense has more than 170 cameras scattered all over Makkah and the holy sites. They will detect and report any incident.
Capt. Abu Shanab also said the Civil Defense has a special force working in the Grand Mosque to deal with any emergency. This force has four medical doctors who provide treatment inside the mosque and refer difficult cases to hospitals in Makkah.
