International News

About 2,000 people evacuated from UN headquarters after fire alarm

UNITED NATIONS, July 19 (APP): Nearly 2,000 people were evacuated on
Tuesday from the United Nations headquarters complex in New York City after a fire alarm went off in one of the fan rooms in the second basement.
UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters that the evacuation has
to carried out as a precaution in case of a potential fire, but the alarm was checked and there was no fire.
“It was a problem potentially with the alarms,” he noted at a briefing
in New York.
UN staff, diplomats, and visitors were allowed back into the buildings
after the alarm was canceled within half an hour.
Haq said the Fire Department of New York came and helped find out that
the rooms did not have fire conditions.
Meetings at the UN headquarters were delayed, including a Security
Council open meeting on the situation in Haiti.