No 111 calls lost during South Island outage - police

Police hope to know today more about what caused the power outage that led to a major problem with 111 calls in the South Island last night.

Police and fire calls to the Police Southern Communications Centre in Christchurch were diverted to the North Island for three and half hours after the malfunction. Ambulance communications were not affected.

Extra staff had to be called in to the Wellington-based central communications centre to handle the extra calls.

Central communications spokesman Inspector Paul Jermy said about an extra 50 111 calls were received between 6pm and when the southern communications centre resumed operations at about 9.30pm.

The initial reason for the power outage was put down to routine maintenance.

But police communications centres spokeswoman Debbie Corney said they expected to know more about what caused the outage today.

She said no 111 calls were lost during the malfunction.

- NZPA