Three dead in Australia after Optus glitch disrupts emergency calls

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Three people in Australia have died after a technical failure at Optus, the country's second-largest telecommunications provider, disrupted emergency call services.

CEO Stephen Rue said the failure occurred during a network upgrade on Thursday, which potentially impacted 600 customers in the states of South Australia and Western Australia, and in the Northern Territory.

Welfare checks later found three people dead in households who had attempted to make emergency triple zero ("000") calls, he told a press conference on Friday, adding that checks were still ongoing.

"I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most," Rue said.

"I offer my sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the people who passed away. I am so sorry for your loss. What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down."

Asked how long the failure lasted, Rue said that was still being investigated.

Optus, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications, had fixed the fault, was conducting a thorough investigation and would make the results public once completed, he said.

The incident comes less than a year after Optus was fined A$12 million ($7.9 million) by regulators for failing to provide emergency call services to thousands during a nationwide outage in 2023.

Optus also suffered a cyber attack in 2022 that affected the data of around 9.5 million Australians and a network-wide outage in 2023, which prompted the resignation of then-CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin. Rue took the reins in November 2024.

($1 = 1.5145 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

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