Residents of Mercury Point wereevacuated on Monday, followinga fire that broke out in thekitchen of a fifth floor flat, re-ports KATHERINE ROMERO.

Students waited anxiously out-side as a number of fire fightersrushed to the scene.

This is not the first time theuniversity halls have fallen vic-tim to a fire. Last February, So-lent halls suffered three fires injust five days.

Speaking about the incident,General Manager of MercuryPoint Clare Ody released the fol-lowing statement:

“At 3.17pm on Monday, 28February, 2011, a fire broke outin a kitchen on the fifth floor ofB-block at Mercury Point. Thestudents who were in the flat atthe time raised the alarm, andwoke their sleeping flatmate asthey evacuated the building. Thestudents reacted in a logical andquick manner, closing the firedoors behind them as they left.

“The whole of B-block wasevacuated quickly and safely, andthe fire brigade arrived on sitewithin minutes of being called. Atotal of seven fire engines at-tended the call to Mercury Point.

“Evacuated residents from B-block and A-block were accom-modated in the common room ofDeanery Halls whilst the firebrigade fought the fire and en-sured the building was safe.The fire was contained within thekitchen, and did not cause dam-age to the rest of the flat or build-ing.

“All students were allowedback into Mercury Point withintwo hours of the alarm being

raised, and no one was hurt.“The Mercury Point team are

appreciative of the efficiency andeffort of Hampshire Fire & Res-cue, and the support receivedfrom both the Solent UniversityAccommodation Office and staff

at Deanery Halls of Residence.”Students on campus were in-

formed of the incident via Twit-ter, thanks to a prompt tweet bySU President Dan Prendergast.

He said: “The idea of usingTwitter, our website and Face-book is one that we use in orderto keep as many students as pos-

sible who follow or friend us on-line up-to-date with as much aspossible being a source of infor-mation and advice. If there’ssomething that students need toknow about, Solent Students’Union will do its best to get thatmessage out there.

“Students were advised that asafe space would be provided ateach of the other student resi-dences until they were told it wassafe to return.”

Emily Holding was one of thestudents evacuated. Speakingwith us shortly after, she said:“B-block fire alarm went off andthey were all evacuated, whichisn’t really unusual, as the firealarms go off all the time, so wedidn’t think anything of it. “Then when we got outside all

the staff were really panickingand trying to get everyone awayfrom the building.

“At first I didn’t really getscared or anything, but thenwhen seven fire engines turnedup, plus several police cars, Istarted to realise it must actuallybe really serious.”

onsolent iHalls evacuatedafter kitchen fire

Students reacted ina logical and quickmanner

Clare Ody‘

Your weekly paper from third year Journalism students at Solent University FRIDAY, 4 MARCH, 2011

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STUDENT!RESIDENCES:!Fifth-floor drama causes havoc for those living in Mercury Point

Put-out operation: Fire crew tackles the fire and evacuates Mercury Point residents (below)

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Issue no4