Major fire guts 34-floor residential building in Sharjah

April 28, 2012

firebuilding

Sharjah, April 28: A massive fire broke out at around 2:30 am on Saturday morning on the north side of Al Tayer buliding in the Al Nahda area of Sharjah.

Panic spread among the residents living in the building when fire broke out but they managed to escape unhurt.

But residents fear many pets left behind by them in the 34 floor residential building may not survive the fire. The reason for the blaze is still unknown.

Civil defense and police reacted fairly quickly and ambulances, firefighters were quickly dispatched. Cilvil defense team from Ajman also rushed to fire site.

However, the residents say they could not see any of the building management and officials during the whole incident.

Residents said the water to dowse the building fire came only an hour after the fire swathed the building.

Till 9:30 am flames could be seen in some of the floors and smoke billowing out of the building but none of the dozen or so fire tenders were seen doing anything.

The residents, who were stranded outside, were asked by the police to gather at the nearby Al Nahda park and register themselves.

Residents also claim that the water sprinklers or the smoke alarm system were out of service and did not work.

In fact some of the residents tried to put out the fire with the water hose in the building but there was no water there.

Eye witnesses say the fire was almost contained but since there was a delay in dispensing water the situation went out of control.

One of the angry residents said that there have been several fire incidents in Al Nahda area which is crowded with high rise buildings and by now the civil defense should have managed to work out a plan to deal with such situations that have hit Al Tayer building today.


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Agencies
June 18,2020

Riyadh, Jun 18: Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb said that Saudi Arabia will resume tourist activities at the end of Shawwal (June 21) after a hiatus of more than three months due to lockdown measures imposed following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

The minister made the remarks during a television interview after chairing the emergency meeting of the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism on Wednesday. He said that the current indications are positive and that the Kingdom is ready to launch the summer program, which will be a boost for domestic tourism.

“It was revealed in a research study carried out by the Tourism Authority that 80 percent of Saudi citizens want to take advantage of domestic tourism. We will launch the domestic tourism program for the public after having made necessary coordination with the Ministry of Health and the concerned higher authorities,” he said.

Several Arab tourism ministers and officials of the relevant organizations attended the meeting, which discussed the challenges that the region’s tourism sector is facing due to the pandemic. Al-Khateeb pointed out that the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism, headed by Saudi Arabia, held the virtual session in exceptional circumstances to discuss ways to get out of this pandemic and revitalize the tourism sector.

“Saudi Arabia has initiated a package of financial stimulus activities with a total value of more than $61 billion to protect jobs and businesses and reduce the economic burden of the crisis. The domestic tourism sector has benefited from it as one of the important economic sectors, as it covered 60 percent of salaries of Saudi employees in the private sector for a period of three months,” he added.

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coastaldigest.com news network
August 3,2020

Sharjah, Aug 3: A 24-year-old Indian engineer has fallen to death from the sixth floor of a residential building on Eid al-Adha in the UAE's Sharjah, a media report said on Monday. 

The electrical engineer, identified with his single name Sumesh, hailed from the south Indian state of Kerala.

He lived in a building in Al Dhaid in Sharjah, from where he fell to death on Friday, the report said, adding that he was apparently talking over the phone and threw it down minutes before the incident.

Sumesh, who came to the UAE a year ago, worked as a designer in Sharjah's Muwaileh area. His roommates said that he had some "personal issues" that had been "bothering him for some time", according to the report.

"It was Eid al-Adha and our cook had made biryani for us. We were all cracking jokes and having a good time. In fact, even Cuckoo (Sumesh) was also laughing with us. He seemed happy. Nobody had anticipated this. I did sense a few times that something was troubling him and I even asked him about it, but he brushed it off," the report quoted his roommate Dileep Kumar as saying.

Shans KF, another roommate, said Sumesh was to travel to India for his annual leave but could not because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The police have launched an investigation and moved the body to the forensic lab for an autopsy.

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News Network
March 23,2020

Dubai, Mar 23: All inbound, outbound and transit passenger flights to and from the United Arab Emirates – home to one of the world’s busiest hubs – are to be suspended for two weeks.

The UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA) and General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has announced that passenger flights to, from and through the country will be suspended from 25 March for a period of two weeks, in order to “curb the spread of the Covid-19”.

Freight and emergency evacuation flights will still be permitted to operate.

The suspension affects major global hubs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Dubai-based Emirates has already announced that it will suspend most of its passenger flights from 25 March.

“Additional examination and isolation arrangements will be taken later should flights resume, in order to ensure the safety of passengers, air crews and airport personnel and their protection from infection risks,” state the NCEMA and the GCAA.

Dubai International Airport was the third-busiest airport in the world in 2018, handling 89 million passengers.

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