Our heroes, home and away

Energy Tuesday 02/January/2018 22:52 PM
By: Times News Service
Our heroes, home and away

Muscat: A PACDA rescuer carries a baby girl to safety after a house fire in Oman, as the rest of the Sultanate settled down to watch the national football team fight for a place in the Gulf Cup final.

Nine Indian expats were rescued from a blazing apartment block in Al Khuwair and the fire was put out. Thanks to our local heroes, who answered the call of duty, nobody died.

More than 1,500 kilometres away, in Kuwait, another team of heroes was busy - securing a place for Oman in the Gulf Cup final. An own goal in the first half earned Oman a place in the final for the first time since 2009 and the team saluted a portrait of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said at the final whistle.

Joyous Omanis in the stadium and at home partied into the night and the streets of Muscat and other cities in Oman rang with the sound of car horns and people cheering the result. In Al Khuwair, it was business as usual for the men and women of the Public Authority for Civil Defence & Ambulance, who received a distress call about people trapped just minutes before the semi-final match kicked off.

Nine Indian nationals, including a baby girl, were trapped inside a five-storey apartment block in Al Khuwair. All nine were rescued and they are in good health, according to rescuers.

"The rescue teams managed to rescue nine trapped people, of which two had minor injuries due to the inhalation of smoke," said an official. The ambulance authority dealt with them on the scene, while the others were not injured,” a PACDA spokesman said.

According to an official source from the Public Authority for Civil Defence and Ambulance (PACDA), the report about the incident was received by PACDA at 5:57pm while the first rescue vehicles arrived on the scene at 6:06pm. “A hydraulic crane was pressed into action,” he said. “The cause of the fire is still being investigated,” he added.