- Damaged undersea cables have seriously crippled Shetland communications.
- Police declared a serious incident.
- Another Shetland-Faroe cable is being repaired after being destroyed last week.
Damaged undersea cables have seriously crippled Shetland communications.
After the south undersea connection between the islands and mainland was cut, police declared a serious incident.
The force stated phones, internet, and computers were unusable and that officers were patrolling to reassure people.
Another Shetland-Faroe cable is being repaired after being destroyed last week.
Alastair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetlands, told the BBC he has reported the matter with the UK government, but it could take days to restore connections.
He prioritized correcting the issue but noted that resilience would need to be considered in the future.
Homes and businesses are affected across the isles, which are 130 miles (210 km) from the Scottish mainland and have a population of about 23,000.
Meanwhile Highlands and Islands Airports told the BBC that Sumburgh Airport was “operating as normal”, but would advise passengers to contact Loganair for further updates.
“Engineers are working to divert services via other routes as soon as possible and we’ll provide further updates. Our external subsea provider is also looking to restore their link quickly.
“Anyone who needs to call 999 should try their landline or their mobile, even if they don’t have signal from their own mobile provider. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
An outage is affecting some landlines, mobiles and internet on Shetland. In an emergency you can try calling 999 even if you don’t have a signal. We have extra patrols out and about in case of an emergency More: https://t.co/GXwOmiDAX5 pic.twitter.com/vhYvW7RmNI
— Northern Police (@northernPolice) October 20, 2022
Emergency services had to make temporary backup preparations.
Police Scotland said it was working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and HM Coastguard to provide additional emergency support to the island.
In Lerwick’s Tesco car park on South Road, the force put up an emergency center
Ch Insp Jane Mackenzie said: “We’re still trying to work to establish the full extent of the problem – we know there are some telephone lines working, 999 lines are believed to be working and some mobile networks are still working.
“So anyone calling 999 should be able to do so from a mobile phone. What we would ask is if you have an emergency you should first try a landline or mobile to call 999.
“If that doesn’t work, you should flag down an emergency service vehicle that isn’t using their blue light or attend either a police station, hospital, fire or ambulance station to report the emergency.”
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