Joe Tidy
Cyber correspondent

It’s not the first time that issues at "Europe-west2" data centres have caused big problems.

In July 2022 there was an outage that was widespread and disruptive at the same cluster of centres.

Google put it down to a cooling failure during a heatwave that forced the company to shutdown a large number of computers to avoid a fire or heat damage.

Data centre computers are powerful and can get very hot if they are not joined up to sophisticated cooling systems like fans or water pipes to extract the heat.

Google said afterwards that it would be conducting a review into cooling systems at its data centres and globally to improve its service.

There is no suggestion that this is the cause of today’s outage, with the company instead blaming it on a "power event".

But it's another reminder that the digital services we all use are only as resilient as the physical infrastructure they run on.

Image source, Getty Images

What is Google Cloud - and what is the 'europe-west2' region?published at 12:27 BST 20 October

12:27 BST 20 October

Liv McMahon
Technology reporter

Google Cloud is one of a handful of large cloud computing providers which essentially prop up our digital lives.

Along with bigger players like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud provides infrastructure and services such as for storage, data management and developer tools, to power and maintain the services we use daily.

Their customers can access these services or tools via specific "regions" - geographical sites which contain a single data centre or a cluster of them.

In this case, the incident causing issues for a number of different companies and platforms - especially Revolut - stems from disruption Google says is affecting "multiple services" at its site Europe-west2, which is based in London.

As Google’s only UK cloud region, any issues at it can have a large knock-on effect for UK or London-based businesses which might heavily rely on Google Cloud services.

But they can affect companies across Europe or further afield which might use its services - as we saw last October when more than 1,000 sites, including UK banks, were knocked offline by an AWS outage at its largest data centre region in the US.

In an updated statement, Google points to a "power event" after problems with its web platform services this morning.

In a statement on its Cloud status platform, it says that they are still suffering "an issue with multiple services".

It adds: "Due to a power event we had suffered an outage within europe-west2-b zone. The power event is mitigated.

"Partial mitigation to infrastructure services will be observed within the next 30 minutes and the remaining services will be mitigated there after."

We can now bring you a update from Google, though little has changed since the company put out a statement earlier.

In its new statement, Google says "multiple services" are still experiencing issues and apologises to those impacted.

It also says its engineering team is continuing to investigate the problem.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service says it is aware of an issue affecting the video platform used for remote hearings (CVP).

In a statement on X, it says that "we’re working with our technology partners to restore service", although it does not directly refer to Google Cloud services.

The Criminal Bar Association said earlier that prosecution and defence barristers "can not proceed with trials and other hearings".

"Cloud Video Platform (CVP) is down across large parts of England and Wales since 10am. Many of us today, both as prosecution and defence counsel, can not proceed with trials and other hearings.

"Our work to clear backlogs is hampered."

Delivery firm DPD is among the firms experiencing issues, according to reporting site Downdetector.

In a statement on its Irish twitter account, DPD said earlier: "We are aware of current connection issues affecting our website.

"Our team is working to get this resolved as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Earlier, Lloyds bank told the BBC its app was functioning normally, but added "we understand some are having issues with certain online services this morning".

"We are aware of similar issues affecting other organisations and are monitoring the situation closely."

• Google Cloud says that "multiple services" are experiencing issues
• A number of firms appear to have problems, with reports of outages on the Downdetector platform showing upticks throughout Tuesday morning

• Online bank Revolut has been reporting "service disruption" but says that customers' "money and data are safe"
• Halifax bank also says it is "aware some customers are having issues" with its app and website, while the delivery firm DPD is also reporting website issues
• In a statement on its Cloud status platform, Google says it will provide its next update by 12:00 BST

Emma, a UK-based budgeting app, also says its services are down.

"Emma is currently down due to a Google Cloud outage affecting services in London since 7am.

"This is a technical outage, not a security issue.

"We're monitoring closely and will update here as soon as the app is back. Sorry for the disruption."

In a post on X, Halifax says it is "aware some customers are having issues" with their app and website.

"We're sorry about this and are working hard to fix it. If you need to you can still call us. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s back to normal," the bank tells a customer on X.

The bank did not confirm whether the issues were caused by the Google Cloud problems.

Earlier this morning, Revolut, the online British bank, reported a "service disruption affecting multiple services".

Thousands of customers have reported problems.

"We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe," it said.

"We’ve been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused."

The website Downdetector - which collates reported issues with web programmes- is showing an uptick in issues across a number of websites on Tuesday morning.

It is not known if all companies listed are users of Google Cloud services.

In a message shared on its Cloud Status page, Google says: "We are experiencing an issue with multiple services in europe-west2", and says that the issues began around 07:00 BST (23:08 PDT).

"Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue."

Google says that "multiple" Cloud services have been suffering network failures.

It comes as users of the bank Revolut have been reporting outages.

This is a breaking news story - we'll bring you updates as we get them.

Image source, Google