Baby among 3 dead in Australia after Optus network failure hits emergency calls
Communications Minister Anika Wells ordered an investigation into the outage, saying the firm ‘let Australians down’
The Australian government said on Saturday that telecoms firm Optus “let Australians down” after three people died during a network outage that prevented calls to emergency services.
Amid a growing outcry, two of the dead were identified as an eight-week-old boy and a 68-year-old woman, police in South Australia said. The two other fatalities were men aged 74 and 49, police in Western Australia said.
Optus CEO Stephen Rue said in a statement late on Saturday that he was “deeply saddened” at news of the latest death, the 49-year-old. Police said the man’s body was found during welfare checks prompted by the glitch.
The outage impacted 600 people across South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory on Thursday evening for at least 10 hours.
Authorities said they were not informed of the incident or deaths until late on Friday.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Saturday the telecoms company had “let Australians down when they needed them the most, and this isn’t good enough.”
“Optus and all telecommunications providers have obligations under Australian law to ensure that they enable emergency services’ calls.”