Google cloud outage disrupts banks, courts and apps across Europe
A power failure in Google's Europe-west2-b zone caused a cloud outage that knocked out services for banks, court video links and several consumer apps.
Google reported that a power incident in its Europe-west2-b zone caused a cloud outage, resulting in service errors and intermittent network problems. The outage impacted a range of services, from banking platforms like Revolut, Lloyds Bank, HSBC and Halifax to the HM Courts & Tribunals Service's secure video-link system for court hearings in England and Wales. Consumer applications such as the budgeting app Emma also went offline.
Google said the power issue has been mitigated and partial restoration would occur within 30 minutes, with full mitigation to follow. A temporary workaround involves moving affected workloads to a different zone or region. The company promised a further update later in the day.
How this was covered
- Left-leaning outlets covered this 2h later
- Right-leaning coverage is the most divided on this story
- Coverage peaked at 7 outlets in a single hour
Why it matters
The outage shows how reliance on a single cloud provider can cripple essential financial, legal and consumer services.
How this story developed
- Oct 20 Widespread Revolut outage disables app functions and physical card payments
- Oct 20 The outage was reported after a smaller earlier glitch that caused reversed card purchases.
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