17/06/2004

Teenager charged over BT phone fire

A teenage boy has been charged in connection with a blaze at telephone exchange in Scotland which disrupted services to almost 25,000 customers.

The 13-year-old was charged last night with wilful fireraising and a report is being drawn up for the Reporter ot the Children's Panel.

Telephone services in parts of East Lothian were said to be "well on the way to recovery" late yesterday afternoon and engineers were expecting a "reasonable level" of service to be restored by around 8pm last night. However, the BBC has reported that around 300 customers are still experiencing problems with services.

Phones were knocked out of commission following a fire at a BT exchange at Musselburgh at 9.30pm on Tuesday. Around 30 firefighters were involved in bringing the balze under control.

The result was services, including 999 calls, were knocked out in the Musselburgh, Gullane, Longniddry, Pencaitland and Cockenzie areas.

Emergency services representatives, health and council officials along with BT have all implemented their emergency contingency plans. These include issuing mobile phones where appropriate and asking the public to help elderly, sick and other vulnerable people who may need medical support or access to emergency services.

The numbers of police officers and high visibility police vehicles were increased and local authority vehicles with radio equipment were on stand-by to relay messages to emergency services.

(gmcg)

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