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Global Microsoft outage disrupts Cumbria emergency services

Summarised from 5 outlets · 24 reports · Updated 13 Nov, 17:29 · Archive

A global Microsoft outage knocked out email services for Cumbria Police, fire and rescue, schools and councils.

First reports of issues with Microsoft 365 services emerged on Thursday evening, 12 November. The outage affected Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft services globally, preventing users from sending or receiving emails, accessing files, or viewing calendar details.

In Cumbria, the disruption was widespread across both public and private sectors. Cumbria Police experienced technical difficulties affecting its 101 email service. The force said that anyone reporting through its website would not reach officers during the outage, and urged the public to call 101 for non-emergency matters and 999 for emergencies.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service also lost email communication abilities. Fire service staff asked members of the public to message the service's Facebook page if they needed to make contact about non-emergency matters. The service similarly directed emergency calls to 999.

Schools across Cumbria faced disruption, as did local authority bodies including Westmorland and Furness Council and Cumberland Council. The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust confirmed there 'might be delays' if patients tried to get in touch online, though clinical services were largely unaffected.

By around 2pm on 13 November, systems began gradually coming back online. Microsoft stated the outage was caused by a 'technical issue' and was not related to cyber attack or malicious activity. The company said: 'We're seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected infrastructure.'

Microsoft added that it regretted the impact on those depending on its services and said its teams were 'reviewing what happened and how we can prevent similar issues going forward'.

Global Microsoft outage disrupts Cumbria emergency services
Image: Cumberland News

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How it is being reported

In this story: Microsoft · Cumbria Police · Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service · Westmorland and Furness Council · Cumberland Council · University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust · Cumbria

This summary was written by AI from the headlines and standfirsts above, and states as fact only what at least two outlets report. How we use AI · Report a problem · Corrections log