Police officers from across Scotland are to be sent to Shetland after a "complete outage" left islanders without access to internet or computers.
They will be deployed on Friday and remain as long as necessary, indicating that it may be some time before normality resumes on the island.
Residents are also being urged to avoid making non-urgent calls to keep the lines clear for emergencies.
Communication lines were cut after a subsea cable connecting Shetland with the Scottish mainland was damaged overnight - however residents are still able to make emergency calls with no signal.
Engineers are working to restore or divert services via other routes after issues with the main line created a widespread outage.
Police Scotland confirmed that some landlines and mobiles are also experiencing a loss of signal.
An emergency hub has also been set up in the Tesco car park in South Road, Lerwick.
Superintendent David Ross said: “We are working with partners to ensure people across Shetland have access to emergency services. Officers and vehicles from across Scotland are being sent to assist until normal service is resumed.
“They will be ready to be deployed on Friday, 21 October, and will remain as long as necessary. Local police stations are open and there is an emergency Hub set up in the Tesco car park in South Road, Lerwick.
“In the meantime, we are advising people not to make non-urgent calls for the time being so that all available lines can be used for emergencies if required.
“If you cannot access 999 by phone you should go to your nearest police station, ambulance station, fire station or hospital to report an emergency or try flagging down an emergency services vehicle that does not have its blue lights on.
“Officers are patrolling in vehicles and on foot and will continue to make themselves available. In addition, I would ask that relatives and neighbours of elderly or vulnerable people check on them regularly. Assistance alarms may not be operating correctly.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel