Nearly 3,000 students evacuated from Cardiff SU club after attendee ‘elbowed’ fire alarm

Around 2,700 students and staff were evacuated from Cardiff University’s SU club Y Plas after someone “elbowed” a fire alarm.

All attendees of the annual Wednesday evening YOLO event were made to leave the building at around 9:50pm last night and were forced to stand outside and wait on Park Place.

With original claims that the club had “gone up in flames” given the all clear by building security and managers, the queues reopened for everyone to get back in the building at about 10:06pm.

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It has since been exclusively revealed to The Cardiff Tab that the cause of the alarm was an attendee “accidentally elbowing” a fire alarm on the first floor of the club.

Connie*, a member of staff at Y Plas, said: “There wasn’t a fire, someone elbowed the glass fire alarm box on level one.

“We fully evacuated, there was something like 2,700 students leaving at the SU at once but once reopened we had a busy night.”

Students spent their 20 minutes stood waiting outside “singing and vaping” with Lexie, a second year student who was in attendance, describing it as “absolute carnage.”

Not all those in attendance were startled by the alarm with second year student Lydia saying: “When the alarm went off I thought it was a remix and was waiting for the beat to drop.”

A final year student, AJ, commented: “Cardiff University, a centre of educational excellence and full of students who elbow alarm boxes.”

On re-entering the building, bar staff found students attempting to pull themselves pints from behind the bar however the beer lines were not turned on so they were unsuccessful.

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“Staff were quite worried that alcohol would be stolen as some of the bars have no shutters. People were trying to pull themselves pints but the draught wasn’t connected so nothing came out,” Connie told The Tab.

This isn’t the first time the SU has been evacuated, during a club night in 2017 over 2,000 students and staff were made to leave the venue after a reported fire.

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