Arabic version: انقطاع شبكة في الإقليم الشمالي يعطل المستشفيات وخدمات الشرطة

According to ABC News, a widespread network outage disrupted Northern Territory government departments, affecting services including hospitals and police. The intermittent outage began at about 3am and reached government agencies from education to housing in urban and remote areas.

The NT government said the issue occurred within a core IT gateway for government services. Hospitals across the territory, including Royal Darwin Hospital, were affected, with staff initiating continuity plans. Department of Corporate and Digital Development deputy chief executive Greg Connors said clinicians experienced delays and could not access some services and systems.

NT Police said three Triple Zero calls were missed during the outage, after earlier advice that emergency calls were not affected. Assistant Commissioner Terry Zhang said Telstra referred the calls to police soon after, and officers followed up all three. He said none was high risk or had consequences, describing them as routine police follow-ups. The police non-emergency line also experienced interruptions.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the territory-wide incident caused significant disruption to IT networks and would be subject to a serious inquiry. Connors said a team of up to 40 people worked to isolate the cause, workarounds were implemented, and systems were effectively back to normal. He said the issue was internal, not a cyber hack, and was expected to be resolved by the evening.