About 300 female students ran for their lives Tuesday morning from their intermediate school building in Madina following a precipitous earthquake warning. The false alarm, which led to the panic-stricken evacuation of the school in the Qubaa' district of the city, was prompted by a call from a member of the school staff to her husband saying they were experiencing an earthquake, which in turn led him to inform the Civil Defense. Members of the Civil Defense, along with rescue teams, firefighters and the Red Crescent, immediately made their way to the site. “It seems to have been merely the result of a loud noise that reverberated around the building,” said a Civil Defense official at the scene, “leading the lady to presume there was an earthquake.” Later, it transpired that the loud noise had emanated from construction work machinery being used at a neighboring building site.
