Queensland police check on 21 Triple Zero callers after Telstra outage

Queensland police have confirmed that all 21 individuals who attempted to call emergency services via Triple Zero (000) during a nationwide Telstra network failure have been contacted. The major outage disrupted mobile phone and data access for millions across Australia, impacting various services.

Telstra reported that a critical software defect in its data centers caused over 300 Triple Zero calls nationwide to fail. In Queensland, police identified 21 people who could not get through to emergency services since the outage began. Superintendent Brook Dwyer assured that "every single person" has since been reached.

Of the 21 callers, police found seven calls were accidental, and one person no longer required assistance. Five callers needed the Queensland Ambulance Service, but emergency services had already been alerted by another party on their behalf. In one instance, police initially could not locate a caller but later tracked their phone, discovering they were on holiday in Victoria.

"We actually had seven matters where we couldn't get in touch with the persons so we sent police cars to all of those people," Superintendent Dwyer stated. "It's been a long 24 hours and we have been in touch with every single person." She advised that Telstra recommended attempting to call Triple Zero again if the first attempt failed, as second attempts were successful.

Similar welfare checks were conducted across the country following the disruption to emergency call services. Investigations into the full impact of the outage on emergency response systems are ongoing.

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We actually had seven matters where we couldn't get in touch with the persons so we sent police cars to all of those people. It's been a long 24 hours and we have been in touch with every single person.