Four killed in Ramses Exchange fire, govt working to restore disrupted networks

Four people were killed in a fire that raged for hours on Monday night in Ramses Central, the headquarters of the Telecom Egypt company in central Cairo.

The fire caused a major outage in telecommunications networks nationwide, disrupting connectivity for calls and messaging, internet access and banking services and delaying several flights from Cairo International Airport.

The four men killed in the fire “lost their lives while performing their duties inside the switchboard building,” Communications and Information Technology Minister Amr Talaat said in a statement on Tuesday, offering his condolences to their families.

Twenty-one people in total suffered injuries in the fire, according to the Public Prosecution, and were transferred to a number of nearby hospitals.

The fire originated on the seventh floor of the Telecom Egypt building, according to the Cairo Governorate, while the communications and information technology minister said the fire was thought to have begun on the floor designated for hosting telecommunications operators. According to reports circulating Monday evening, the flames had spread to the adjacent telegraph headquarters. Smoke was visible from across the city billowing from the data center.

Network connectivity nationwide suffered major disruptions since the Ramses Exchange houses switchboards used to route network and telecoms traffic. Netblocks, a global independent network monitor, said that data showed national connectivity at 62 percent of ordinary levels on Monday night. The fire also disrupted public access to emergency services, including ambulance hotlines. 

It was brought under control by around 11 pm on Monday, according to the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, which stated that all fixed internet traffic had been transferred to the Rawda Exchange.

But connectivity had recovered to only 44 percent of normal levels by the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to Netblocks, with some banking, mobile and trade services still facing severe disruption. Webpages for several domestic media outlets also suffered outages that persisted into Tuesday.

The Egyptian Exchange announced that trading was suspended on an exceptional basis on Tuesday, citing disruptions caused by the fire.

Both the national telecoms authority and the communications minister said that a full restoration of networks was expected within 24 hours.

“There is no single exchange that Egypt relies on, and the Ramses Exchange will remain out of service for days,” Talaat said in his Tuesday statement.

Critics, including parliamentarians, have decried the centrality of the Ramses Exchange to national connectivity in statements to domestic outlets following the fire.

Normal flight times were restored by Tuesday morning, the Civil Aviation Ministry announced, after stating that some departures had been affected by the outages shortly after midnight.

The Public Prosecution announced Tuesday that it opened an investigation into the fire to identify its cause and assess whether safety and civil protection regulations were properly observed.