Victoria’s emergency Triple Zero computer and dispatch system was knocked offline for several hours early on Wednesday morning, forcing call-takers and dispatchers to use pen and paper to co-ordinate emergency responses.

The outage, which began at 12.30am, was caused by a power issue at the Triple Zero facility, a spokeswoman said. The system began transitioning back to its normal operations shortly after 3.30am and was fully operational just after 4am.

Emergency Services Minister Vicki Ward said a Triple Zero back-up power system should have taken over during the outage, with the power issue lasting for about 90 minutes.

“We don’t know why it didn’t. We are investigating that,” she said. “It’s never happened before.”

Ward said she was advised that all calls to Triple Zero had gone thr

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