A number of US police departments around the United States on Monday (local time) reported that their 911 lines are not operational. However, later some police departments also reported having restored the service.

“The 911 lines are not operational nationwide. This is for phone calls and text messaging. If you need police, fire or emergency medical assistance in Minneapolis, please call 612-348-2345. We will advise when this issue is fixed,” Minneapolis Police wrote on Twitter.

Similarly, St Anthony Police tweeted: “ALERT!!!! Currently 911 lines are down nationwide! If you are in need of emergency services in Hennepin County please call 952-258-5321. If in Ramsey County call 651-767-0640. There is no known time frame for 911 calls to be back in service. We will update as needed.”

According to a report by Russia Today, by around 8 pm (local time in Minnesota), some departments noted 911 service had been restored, however, the outages appeared to continue across various counties in Nevada and elsewhere.

Earlier, the Russia Today had reported that the Police and sheriffs departments in Illinois, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, Delaware, Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Minnesota noting issues with their emergency call systems on Monday (local time). They have asked residents to use alternative numbers while they work to correct the issue, allegedly caused by a technical failure in Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing services.

As Microsoft was earlier quoted as saying that a “subset of customers in the Azure Public and Azure Government clouds may encounter errors,” it is believed to have caused the 911 outages.