Did you have an emergency on Monday and was unable to use 112? You were not the only one. The emergency number was down for 3 hours on Monday at 4 pm because of a disruption at KPN, reports NU.nl. Local emergency services released their 06 numbers on social media as no national emergency numbers were working.

The emergency services had to improvise so that they were visible to the people who needed the help. According to what a spokesperson of the Brabant-Zuidoost said to NU.nl, there are no protocols set in place in case of a situation like this.

How did they improvise?

People in Katwijk, Gouda, and Leiden could see the Red Cross buses around their cities as they wanted to make sure that anyone in trouble could come to them for help. In the North and East Gelderland Security Region, an emergency room with a separate number was set up. In other places, they had barracks with at least 2 people in different parts of the region, and it is reported to have worked. Few people in trouble did approach them, but it is not known how many.

The security region of Central and West Brabant also made announcements on social media, television, and radio about the disruption. They even have banners with emergency numbers featured on municipal websites.

In Eindhoven, Deken van Somerenstraat’s fire station kept their doors open, with the fire trucks parked outside, and the firefighters sitting in the doorway, so that they were easy to spot in case of an emergency.

In many municipalities, like in Alphen aan den Rijn, Groningen, Leiden, and Utrecht, people were asked to go to public buildings which had ambulances, in case of an emergency.

Situation still under evaluation

Like many regions, the Amsterdam police could not clarify how many people had got into trouble. Almost all police units are still evaluating the situation to figure out how many emergency calls they might have missed, and how many people got into trouble because of this disruption. The police also said that they got a lot of unnecessary calls on the national emergency numbers.

The cause of this failure is still unknown and we hope they find out soon. What do you make of this? Let us know in the comments below!

Feat Image by Denizz/ wikipedia