Belfast BT Data Centre Fire Causes Northern Ireland Internet Disruption

A fire at a BT data centre in Belfast has caused disruption to a number of websites in Northern Ireland, as well as disruption to Internet services.

Firefighters were called to BT Telephone House in the Northern Irish capital yesterday morning when the “accidental” blaze was discovered, but not before it caused a number of customers’ websites to go offline.

BT Belfast data centre

Belfast City Council, PNSI, Northern Ireland Electricity and Strabane District Council were among those to be affected, but most services have now returned to normal. BT has said the issues were caused by the power supply, not because of damaged equipment.

“Yesterday’s fire in our Telephone House building in Belfast disrupted the electricity supply to the building affecting a number of customers in our data centre,” a spokesperson told TechWeekEurope. “All BT customers who were affected had service restored by yesterday afternoon and we are working closely with a small number of customers to iron out any minor outstanding issues.

“An investigation into the cause of the fire is now underway and we’d like to extend our thanks to the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue service for their prompt response and to thank our customers for their patience.”

The Belfast Telegraph claims consumer Internet services were disrupted “across the province”, but BT said this was not the case and that the only difficulty they should have experienced was accessing the affected sites.

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