With reporting from Chantelle D’mello

Students at Education City’s Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMCQ) have been evacuated from the building this afternoon after a fire apparently broke out on a first-floor balcony.

Smoke billowed out of the building as students and staff exited around 3pm, but firefighters could soon be seen hosing down part of the north side of the building.

Onlookers were told by someone with a megaphone that the fire originated in an outdoor terrace upstairs, but no immediate cause of the blaze was known.

Community members were told they could go to the student center or neighboring Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar as the fire was being dealt with. Many decided to leave campus.

By 3:30pm, several ambulances and police cars could be observed on the scene, though there appeared to be no injuries. Additionally, the area around the building was cordoned off.

Shortly before 5pm, WCMCQ gave the all-clear signal to students and staff, saying i was ok to return to the facility. According to an employee there, there were no injuries and the building suffered minimum damage.

Does anyone know more? Thoughts?