Friday 26 / July / 2024
Paris: France began searching for answers Thursday after its emergency phone line broke down for several hours a day earlier.
It was too soon to say whether there was any link between the outage and three to four deaths recorded during this time, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Thursday.
French President Emmanuel Macron also said that it was too early to draw conclusions, but that the situation was worrying.
Deaths during emergency line disruption
The disruption began at around 5 p.m. (1500 UTC) until midnight on Wednesday. Around a fifth of all people making calls to emergency medical, police or fire numbers in this period did not get through or had their calls cut off mid-conversation.
A person suffering from a cardiovascular disease is reported to have died in Brittany because the emergency services could not be reached in time. Prosecutors in Vannes, Brittany, announced they would launch an inquiry into the death.
