Power outage at Google London datacentre disrupts UK banks, court hearings and NHS app

Summary

A power outage at a Google datacentre in London, in its europe-west2-b zone, cascaded into widespread disruption, according to reporting. Multiple banking services faltered, court hearings were put on hold and patients reported temporary glitches on the NHS app. Google said in a service health update that most services had returned to normal. Experts quoted in the coverage said the outage shows the danger of growing reliance on a small number of big companies for digital infrastructure.

Timeline

1. NDTV

   20 Oct 2026, 14:38 UTCSource ↗

   NDTV reports that UK bank operations were disrupted after a power outage hit Google Cloud services, and that Google said in a service health update that most services had returned to normal.

2. The Guardian

   20 Oct 2026, 16:50 UTCSource ↗

   The Guardian reports that a power outage at a Google datacentre in London, in zone europe-west2-b, caused multiple banking services to falter, put court hearings on hold and led to temporary glitches on the NHS app.