at least 90,000 people losing their phone service along the Costa del Sol as far away as Marbella, Mijas, Fuengirola and Benalmádena.

A fire in a Telefónica sub-exchange in Málaga city on Friday night resulted in at least 90,000 people losing their phone service along the Costa del Sol as far away as Marbella, Mijas, Fuengirola and Benalmádena.

Telefónica say given the size of the blaze it is unclear how many clients were affected in total. Several mobile phone masts were also affected, as were some emergency numbers including 112, 061 and the Police for a time.

Málaga firecrews said the fire started in Calle Eduardo Marquina, for reasons still being investigated just before Midnight on Friday night. They had extinguished the blaze by 4am.

A 150 strong emergency team from Telefónica have been working on site since then to restore services. Initially they forecast 50% of the lines will be back at 11pm on Saturday night and the rest should be fixed during Sunday, but then later it emerged that the problem was far more serious.

The emergency team was upped to 200 and a statement on Sunday explained that the Málaga-Sol exchange was divided into two. One half, with 50% of the lines, has now been restored and is working normally, however the other half ‘is practically burnt thorough and therefore totally unusable’.

The team now has to assemble brand new equipment for these lines and connect it to emergency exchanges to restore the service. Telefónica has said it is unable to say exactly how long that could take.

Telefónica said that it was the most serious breakdown ever seen in Málaga province. ‘If it was a normal breakdown, the lines would be diverted by other alternative routes, but there problem is that there has been a fire’, said a spokesman.
4,000 ADSL users in Málaga city centre have also lost their access.