Fire in a Fiber-Optic Node in Namur: Vandalism or Sabotage?

The following report from RTL.be describes a fire of unknown origin that destroyed a fiber-optic telephone exchange in the Belgian city of Namur.

Many thanks to Nathalie for the translation:

Fiber-optic node in Belgium burned or sabotaged

The numbers 100, 101 and 112 for emergency services have now been reconnected in the Province of Namur after the blaze which destroyed a telephone exchange equipped with fiber optic technology last Friday. The Proximus telephone service for mobile and landline networks had suffered from disruptions, said the governor of the Province of Namur.

The situation in the Province of Luxembourg was quickly put to rights by Friday night. The emergency response for the management of crises in the province was ended shortly after 9 am by the governor.

On Friday morning a telephone exchange, which was situated underneath the Louvain bridge in Namur, was destroyed in a fire. The infrastructure of the Proximus telephone network was disrupted.

Experts were sent to the area on Friday afternoon to try and ascertain the origin of the blaze. The prosecutor’s office has no information forthcoming to date.

It was known that the telephone exchange was protected by no security measures and was occupied by vagrants on a regular basis.

Hat tip: Matt Bracken.

2 thoughts on “Fire in a Fiber-Optic Node in Namur: Vandalism or Sabotage?

  1. When the Silicon Valley electricity substation was put out of action at one o’clock one morning by two shooters with AK47 rifles a prime telephone cable serving the site had been carefully severed beforehand.

    Utilities are vulnerable: they are vital but not protected against hostile attack.

    See “Attacks on Utilities” at LibertyGB:
    http://www.libertygb.org.uk/news/attacks-utilities

Comments are closed.