A successful large-scale emergency evacuation drill for the Old, Engineering, Business Studies and Fashion Design Buildings was conducted in the morning of 11 January 2017 under the supervision of the College Risk, Health and Safety (CRHS) Committee chaired by Dr. Khalid Al-Abri. The drill, covered all users both students and staff totaling over 400, from various departments and units, holding offices and classes in the buildings.

The exercise monitored the response times, inter-department coordination and communication during a major emergency, and identified any strengths and gaps of the overall emergency evacuation strategy. The activity made use of megaphones, paging system and existing fire alarm systems to simulate the alarm sound.

The CRHS committee underpins the importance of implementing such activity since it helps identify any weaknesses and enhance the attitudes and capabilities of all staff and students in the College. This also reflects the College’s commitment in ensuring the utmost levels of health and safety for everyone through the concerted efforts of various college departments and units.

In order to increase preparedness and reduce potential risks brought about by incidents and situations requiring emergency evacuations, the CRHS committee aims to conduct more frequent emergency evacuation drills simulating various situations in the future.

The exercise was supervised by Mr. Mike Medina, OIC-CRHS Coordinator, together with the lead wardens – Mr. Khalid Al-Ismaily, Mr. Dindo Latonio, Dr. Christina Cruz and Ms. Sai Upadhye – collaboratively coordinating the warden groups from the Applied Sciences/ETC (Old Building), Engineering, Business Studies and Fashion Design departments respectively.