Three Dead, Including Infant, After Optus Emergency Call Failure

Optus has admitted a triple-zero outage in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory led to three deaths.
Three Dead, Including Infant, After Optus Emergency Call Failure
A man walk past an Optus store in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 26, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times
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An eight-week-old baby is among three people confirmed dead as a result of an outage of the triple-zero (000) emergency network affecting up to 600 households in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory.

Australia’s second-largest telco, Optus, admitted responsibility at a press conference late on Sept. 19, saying a network upgrade had gone wrong, but gave few details. Chief Executive Stephen Rue said it was not clear why only emergency calls were affected or why backup systems did not take over.

Rex Widerstrom
Rex Widerstrom
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Rex Widerstrom is a New Zealand-based reporter with over 40 years of experience in media, including radio and print. He is currently a presenter for Hutt Radio.