The Netherlands was yesterday investigating the source of a massive telephone network breakdown that disabled the nation’s emergency numbers.
The disruption late on Monday started with the KPN national network and then spread to linked providers across the nation, lasting for four hours before it was fixed.
Police, firefighters and ambulance workers took to the streets so they could be contacted if necessary and the government issued alternatives to the 112 emergency hotline on social media.
Dutch Minister of Justice and Security Ferd Grapperhaus yesterday summoned KPN’s management to explain the breakdown and ensure that it would “not happen again.”
Grapperhaus said on Twitter that they must “carefully figure out how this malfunction could have arisen.”
The Dutch national counterterrorism coordinator would also be involved in the meeting, local media said.
However, hacking was not believed to be the cause of the breakdown, senior KPN official Joost Farwerck told the Nieuwsuur program on Monday evening.
Dutch media said that KPN chief executive Maximo Ibarra would step down, but that it was due to family matters and was not connected to the breakdown.
The phone outage came as the Netherlands was hit by a heatwave, which also put extra strain on emergency services, with temperatures set to reach 36°C in the south.
Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament are also expected to raise the issue today.
“It is quite incomprehensible that 112 seems so fragile,” Chris van Dam, an MP from the center-right CDA party, said on Twitter.
MP Arne Weverling of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD party said that “whatever the reason, it shows how vulnerable we are.”
Separately, the major Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn said it had suffered an important breakdown at checkouts in stores across the country, its second in the space of a month.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese