SINGAPORE – Motorists were stuck in parking lots – sometimes for as long as 20 minutes – as electronic gantries broke down. Many others were also logged out of their computer systems when a major global technology outage struck on July 19.

It wasn’t all bad though. Some decided to call it a day and start their weekend early.

Freelance writer Allyson Thomas, 50, and her husband sat in their car in Toa Payoh for about 20 minutes waiting for the car park barrier to open.

Repeated calls to the parking operator went unanswered. Nearly 200 car parks were affected across the island. Eventually, an employee of parking operator Wilson Parking arrived to rescue them. He explained that he had to rush to free up more gantry cranes, said Ms Thomas, who added: “I can’t imagine how many he must have had to go there today.”

About 185 car parks, or 10 percent of all car parks, in Housing Board estates were affected by the power outage, HDB said in a Facebook post.

For many, it was a day of confusion and frustration as they were locked out of networks critical to their daily services and work during a global technical outage caused by a faulty system update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

The Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) said in a statement on July 19 that government services, local banks, telecom companies and hospitals were not affected, but the outage had affected several companies that provide services to the public.

The disruption is difficult to quantify, but as of 2 p.m. ET, the user website Downdetector.com reported a spike in reported outages across Microsoft 365, with more than 150 outages recorded, and more than 50 outages at Microsoft Azure in Singapore.

Another motorist, Ms May Tan, 50, who was stuck in a queue of about 10 cars that had been waiting for at least 10 minutes behind a parking gantry in Tiong Bahru, said some drivers became frustrated and got out of their vehicles to ask what was happening. After several phone calls, the driver of the first car managed to reach the parking attendant and was given instructions on how to operate the barrier, which was raised for one car at a time, she said.

“A very kind uncle offered to help lift the barrier for each car,” said Ms Tan, who works in the financial sector. “We asked him what he thought, but he kindly insisted that everyone should go first.”

Ms Tan said: “It was a nice moment to come out of the chaos today.”

Mr Zhou Zhi Teng, 34, who works in private equity, said he and his colleagues had been unable to work since lunch because they were locked out of their company’s private network portal, which was down. “Without an intranet, we can’t set up meetings, we can’t send emails. All the work we do on Excel is not saved,” Mr Zhou said.

When he realized there was no more work to be done, his colleagues went to a bar for drinks at 4 p.m., he said.

“It was a relaxing afternoon,” said Mr Zhou, “but I know many people here still have a lot of work to catch up on.”

((nid:694340))

Much of the chaos took place at the airport, where serpentine lines formed at AirAsia and Scoot check-in desks. These desks were no longer functioning, forcing airport staff to work manually with pen and paper.

Other affected businesses include SingPost, which warned users that its tracking system and shipping platforms had been affected. Bill payments, self-service kiosks and label printing at SingPost’s POPStations were also temporarily unavailable.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.