London emergencies: Tamil ‘very popular’

The Metropolitan Police Services (MPS) in Londonsays that Tamil is among the top ten languages used by the Londoners in accessing emergency services.

The police emergency services that receives approx 8,000 emergency calls and 12,000 non-emergency calls every day, use the most popular language lines 1400 times a month, it said.

The most popular languages among London’s diverse population in accessing emergency services are Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Somali, French, Tamil and Bengali, according to the police.

The MPS has launched an awareness campaign to inform diverse communities in the capital, including Tamils, that they can access emergency police services even they do not speak English.

The MPS says it has launched a non-emergency number - “to make it easier for people to contact” police, insted of usual 999 calls.

“Although approximately 90% of 999 calls received by the MPS are answered within ten seconds we want to make sure we can respond to calls from people in genuine emergencies more quickly and safely,” the MPS said in a statement.

Ch Supt BJ Harrington, Commander of the CCC said: “Even if your first language is not English we can still help as we can set up a three-way conversation between the caller, police operator and translator.”

^BBC