Fire incident causes emergency power shutdown at Digital Realty

A fire at a Digital Realty data center in Singapore has continued into its second day. The fire alarm was triggered at its SIN11 data center at 7.45am local time yesterday, September 10. By 8.04pm local time, Alibaba, which runs some of its cloud service from the data center, said that, though "under control," the issue had not been completely eliminated.

"As of 1:46am, in response to local fire department's request, due to ongoing water spraying for fire fighting, the server room has started to experience water accumulation and leaks, posing a risk of electrical short circuits," Alibaba said in a further update on its status page. "An emergency power shutdown has been implemented for one of the server building[s] in Singapore Availability Zone C, while network services for other buildings in Availability Zone C have been gradually restored."

A spokesperson for Digital Realty said: "As of 1.45am local time on 11 September, following advice from Digital Realty’s Licensed Electrical Worker (LEW) and the SCDF, we have powered down some electrical systems. All impacted customers have been advised to continue to maintain their business continuity plans in effect."