Amazon’s cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), said on Sunday that one of its data centres in the United Arab Emirates was briefly knocked offline after being struck by objects that caused sparks and a fire. The incident led to a temporary shutdown of power as emergency crews moved in to contain the situation.
In a statement, AWS said the disruption began at around 4:30 AM PST, when one of its Availability Zones, identified as mec1-az2, was impacted. The company described the event as objects hitting the facility, which then led to sparks and a fire inside the data centre.
For context, an Availability Zone is a key part of AWS infrastructure. It typically consists of one or more physical data centres grouped together within a region, designed to operate independently so that if one zone goes down, others can continue running without disruption.
Following the incident, the local fire department stepped in and cut power to the affected facility to safely handle the fire. AWS said this was a precautionary move to ensure that emergency crews could extinguish the flames without further risk.
The outage, however, appears to be limited. AWS noted that other Availability Zones within the UAE region remain fully operational and continue to support customers without interruption. Still, the company cautioned that it may take several hours before connectivity is fully restored in the impacted zone.
The timing of the incident has raised questions, as it comes amid heightened tensions in the region. The UAE has recently faced retaliatory missile and drone strikes from Iran following US and Israeli attacks. These strikes have reportedly targeted key infrastructure, including airports, ports and residential areas across the country and the wider Gulf region.
When asked whether the data centre incident was connected to these ongoing attacks, AWS did not confirm any link. The company has so far only described the cause as “objects” striking the facility, without offering further details.
While the exact nature of the incident remains unclear, it highlights how critical infrastructure like data centres can be vulnerable during periods of geopolitical tension, even as companies design systems with multiple layers of redundancy to minimise disruption.
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