Airtel network hit by fire at data centre

Airtel customers woke up to a network outage on Tuesday as the telecom giant's data and cellular network was severely impacted due to a major fire at its data centre in Malad in suburban Mumbai.

On its Twitter account – Airtel Presence -- the company tweeted: 'Some Airtel customers may be experiencing connectivity issues due to an unforeseen technical outage on some circuits in Western region...'

Television reports said that due to the fire at the Bharti Airtel office in Malad, the cellular operator's Blackberry and voice services have been affected too.

While the company has not yet said when would the problem be solved, it apologised in a tweet, saying: 'Sorry for inconvenience. We are in process to resolve the concern (sic). Thanks.'