An evacuation in order at the time of quake

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It took an impressive five minutes and 16 seconds for over 200 employees to evacuate their offices on the fourth floor of a building in Kaloor, Kochi as the tremor send waves of panic across the state on Wednesday afternoon.

They weren’t prepared for it nor had they done mock drills for it, but they managed to reach safety in an orderly way.

The achievement was made by Vertex Customer Solutions India Private Limited that is situated on the fourth floor of DD Towers on the Kaloor-Kadavanthra road.

Employees evacuated comprised 189 agents and 20 support staff, 80 per cent of whom were girls, which increased the weight of the task. With the help of a disciplined security staff they were led to the safety of an open ground in the vicinity.

“It was an excellent piece of team work. Though all of us were taken by surprise, a commotion didn’t occur and everybody listened to the instructions to proceed through the emergency exit.

They were advised against boarding the lift as well. We checked with the geology department later about the gravity of the situation,” said Bijoy Joseph, administration senior executive.

The whole contingent spent almost one-and-a-half-hours outside before deciding to return to their seats around 4 pm thinking that the situation was under control. Then again another tremor took place around 4.10 pm, throwing the group into a tizzy.

Without wasting time and being extremely orderly, the whole contingent moved to safety down through the emergency exit and after a while the management decided to call it day and not work the night shift as well.

While the team was out on the open ground managers gave a briefing on the earthquake and arranged drinking water for the crowd. They even collected medicines to meet any eventuality.