Steve Kent, Yasmin Khalil and Laetitia Woue reports
Hundreds of staff and students had to be evacuated and dozens of lectures were cancelled after an electrical fire broke out at a shop on the University of East London’s Docklands campus on Thursday 22nd November.
Intense heat caused crockery stored in the shop to ‘explode’. Before the fire was brought under control, the ground floor of East Building was ‘full of smoke’, according to eye-witnesses.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) was called at 8.20am, and two fire engines arrived on the scene within minutes. No one was injured in the blaze, but a UEL fire marshal reported that ‘it’s a real mess in there.’
Students and staff arriving on campus on Thursday morning were refused entry into three campus buildings for more than 90 minutes. By 10am nearly a thousand people had gathered outside, waiting for news. West Building was cleared for use shortly after 10am, but at the same time UEL issued a statement cancelling all classes scheduled to take place in East Building throughout the day.
Fire damage to electrical systems caused all campus cash machines and chip and pin devices to malfunction. ‘I had to go to Asda to get the cash to come back here and buy a cup of coffee’, reported one student waiting for her class to begin in West Building.
The hand-in desk for assignments was closed along with the rest of East Building. This prompted further confusion among students due to submit coursework on Thursday.
Apart from the ground floor shop and the media production suite situated directly above, UEL’s East Building was re-opened in time for first class on Friday 23rd November.
Additional reporting by Laran Wands, Matthew Baldwin, Felix Denton, Adel Mouden, and Gerard Gillen