At the end of Tuesday, the phones of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s Government are ringing with alarm precisely because there is one phone that does not ring. It is the 112 emergency number. The service has been down for a long time.A technical problem that the Madrid government blames on the supplier, Orange. It takes three hours until normality is restored, according to the company, but the Community of Madrid does not specify. But the problem, publicized on social networks by the president herself and 112 to provide alternatives to citizens The incident caused an earthquake, the aftershocks of which are still being felt: the regional government has opened proceedings against the telecommunications company for failing to guarantee the provision of service during a time slot in which around 1,000 calls are usually made, although there is no record of any unanswered emergencies, as alternative numbers had been set up, according to a government spokesman. The incident also affected 062, the emergency telephone number of the Civil Guard, and other institutions.
This is what an employee says: “From 10pm onwards, calls started coming in again, but without the phone number, with asterisks, and the service was not restored to normal until the early hours of the morning, when the night shift was already in session.” “The cause was a malfunction in the operation of a device triggered by a configuration change,” explains an Orange spokesperson. “And the duration, about three hours,” he adds, referring to an incident that began around 7pm on Tuesday and ended at 10pm that day.
The Security and Emergency Agency communicates the problem through a very disturbing tweet. “Due to a technical incident with the Orange company, the 112 telephone number is not working normally,” reads the message. “In the event of a health emergency, fire or rescue, citizens can call 061 and in the event of a security emergency, 091 and 092,” it asks. Barely an hour later, it is reported that everything has been resolved through the same means: “Citizens can contact normally to report any emergency through 1-1-2 [sic]”.
That, however, does not mean that the Community of Madrid has closed the matter. The reason? That the centre from which emergencies are referred to the National Police, the Civil Guard, Summa 112 or Samur has been disconnected for a long time. A situation that is judged unacceptable. “The service has been provided normally since yesterday [en referencia al martes] at 10:00 p.m.,” said the regional government spokesman, Miguel Ángel García, on Wednesday after the weekly meeting of the regional government council.
“The incident was due to a generalised outage of the provider,” he said, pointing again to Orange. “We have asked for explanations and have opened an information file, because the service is guaranteed, and there were up to seven levels of contingency, and all seven failed,” he explained. “It is unheard of,” he acknowledged. And he concluded: “The first thing that was done was to inform about the telephones that were operational. The emergency services were enabled, beyond that incident, which we consider very serious.”
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In addition, the spokesperson for Díaz Ayuso’s Executive has indicated that this incident also affected the 062 number of the Civil Guard and has announced that the Community of Madrid is going to request the Secretary of State for Telecommunications to draw up a protocol so that a short telephone number such as 112 can be associated with several operators in case the contracted one fails. This would try to avoid a repeat of a situation like that of Tuesday.
The regional government will therefore investigate the cause of the anomaly and request certifications and audits on the contingency systems, says a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment, Agriculture and the Interior. “It has had a very serious impact on all citizens,” insists this interlocutor. However, these are explanations that do not convince the opposition.
“Mrs Ayuso, this is not a joke that can be dismissed with an emoticon,” complains the regional leader of the PSOE, Juan Lobato, on his social networks. “This is something very serious and a mistake that could cost people their lives,” he argues. “This is about an essential and critical public service such as the Madrid 112 Security and Emergency Agency, which is essential for the safety of Madrid residents,” he continues. “Do your job, demand and give Madrid residents explanations of what has happened and what measures are going to be taken. And say who is going to assume responsibility for what happened.”
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