Talk:Laboratory fire forces evacuation of Australian National University

The core of this article comes from the only article so far written about the incident, which was circulated to all the News Limited papers. I suspect there'll be more tomorrow. The other details surrounding the evacuation are an eyewitness account - it was a most interesting afternoon. Ambi 13:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

The emails that were sent to students:

Dear Colleagues There has been an explosion and fire in the Research School of Chemistry. The fire brigade is in attendance. There is dense smoke on campus and it would be prudent for staff and students to stay out of the smoke. Staff and students should stay away from the area while the emergency is being dealt with. The police have closed off that section of the campus. As far as we know there have been no reported injuries. Lawrence Cram Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

then later...

Dear Colleagues The fire in RSC is now under control. Staff and students should not cross safety barriers until permitted to do so. Some areas may remain closed for at least the rest of the day. So, unless there is reason not to do so, staff and students close to the affected areas may go home. Lawrence Cram Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

As to the other things that weren't in the Courier-Mail article:


 * I live with some postgraduate students who said they had lost theses
 * A partner for an activity that was to be held quite some distance from the fire later in the afternoon reported that it had been called off, apparently due to the campus evacuation
 * Everything else was what I saw personally; even the police didn't seem to know what was going on when I got there, and it was quite a chaotic scene when the police started clearing the main buildings. Ambi 16:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)