SHARE
COPY LINK
Paywall free

UPDATE: Swiss emergency numbers restored after nationwide breakdown

Emergency numbers have been restored on Friday morning, after having been not functional since late Thursday evening due to a technical failure.

UPDATE: Swiss emergency numbers restored after nationwide breakdown
Photo: AFP

Emergency telephone services across much of Switzerland were reestablished Friday morning after being unavailable for hours overnight, operator Swisscom said.

“Swisscom has stabilised the situation,” the operator said on Twitter. “All telephony services, including emergency numbers, have been fully available again since… 7:53 am” (0553 GMT), it said.

That was more than 12 hours after the services began crashing in many parts of the country, including in major cities like Zurich, Basel and Geneva, at 11:45 pm Thursday, according to the ATS news agency. Swisscom said it had “successfully isolated the source of the fault and is continuing to work intensively on analysing the cause of the disruption.”

In addition to the emergency numbers, the operator said landline connections and business numbers had been hit, while other mobile connections had not been affected.

The outage had prompted a number of Swiss cantons to provide alternative emergency numbers via websites and Twitter.

What had happened? 

The outage included a general national breakdown of emergency numbers 112 and 117 (police), 118 (fire service), and 144 (ambulance).

Swisscom said that the problem appeared to be affecting only landline connections, where calls placed were interrupted after only a few seconds.

By contrast, mobile connections were not affected, Swisscom said.

The operator said it was working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

To find alternative numbers in your canton to dial in case of emergency visit the Alert Swiss website.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.