Four employees died and 27 others were injured in the Ramses telecoms data center fire that broke out on Monday, according to a Health Ministry statement. The outage continued to disrupt internet, mobile, and financial services across the country yesterday as the fallout from theincident rippled into its second day.

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Could service be fully restored this morning? ICT Minister Amr Talaat pledged that all telecom services disrupted by the fire would gradually return to normal within 24 hours, according to a ministry statement issued yesterday morning. All telecom services have been rerouted through alternate centers and will gradually come online. “There is no single center that Egypt relies on,” he said, adding that the Ramses data center will remain out of service for several days.

Telecoms engineers we spoke overnight with were a little less sanguine, warning that while it’s possible — even likely — that connectivity will continue to improve throughout the day today, it’s (a) not like flicking a switch brings things back to the previous level of bandwidth and (b) we can expect hiccups over the coming several days.

Internet connectivity is gradually coming back: Connectivity levels across the country have climbed to 68% yesterday, up from 44% on Monday, according to the most recent update from Netblocks, which tracks global internet connectivity.

Financial services gradually recovered: Services on digital payment platforms including InstaPay, Vodafone Cash, and Fawry mostly resumed yesterday. But ATMs and digital banking services remain spotty.

^^ We have more on how the outage has impacted banking services in the news well, below.

International data traffic was unaffected — global routing infrastructure remained intact and international bandwidth was stable, Telecom Egypt CEO Mohamed Nasr told Asharq Business.

Operations have returned to normal at Cairo International Airport and all flights delayed by the outage departed, the Civil Aviation Ministry said yesterday.

The public prosecution is investigating the cause of the fire and assessing adherence to safety and civil defense protocols. It has tasked forensic authorities with autopsies and DNA analysis for the casualties and conducted site inspections as well as hospital visits to question the injured.

Mobile service remains unreliable, depending on your location, provider, and the network you’re trying to reach.

The EGX called off yesterday’s trading session, saying the move was aimed at ensuring market fairness for all participants, seeing as traders could not access live market data. “No one could see the prices,” EGX boss Ahmed El Sheikh told Asharq Business.

^^ We have more on the EGX’s response to the disturbances, above.

What’s the damage? Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa cited (watch, runtime: 1:54) ICT Minister Amr Talaat as saying that “all the equipment has been completely burned.”

The aftermath of the fire continued to receive ink in the global press: Associated Press | Reuters | Bloomberg.

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