Fire at Loyang data centre, SCDF operations still ongoing after 12 hours

SINGAPORE: A fire broke out at a data centre in Loyang on Tuesday morning (Sep 10), with firefighters continuing to conduct operations more than 12 hours after it started.
The fire at the Digital Realty data centre at 3 Loyang Way broke out at about 7.45am, the company said, while the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was alerted to the incident at 8.10am.
“The fire involved lithium-ion batteries housed in battery rooms on the 3rd floor of a 4-storey building,” said SCDF. 
“SCDF deployed four water jets to contain the fire. The sprinkler system was also activated.”
It added that about 20 people had evacuated from the building before firefighters arrived.
There were no reported injuries, SCDF said.
As of 9pm, an unmanned firefighting robot was being deployed for damping down operations to cool the batteries involved in the fire. 
“This will likely be a prolonged operation,” added SCDF.
Digital Realty is an international real estate firm that owns and operates data centres. It has three data centres in Singapore – two in Loyang and one in Jurong.
It said its response protocol was deployed as soon as the fire alarm was triggered.
“All on-site personnel were safely evacuated by 8.15am and no injuries are reported,” said Digital Realty when contacted by CNA. “We swiftly notified and advised impacted customers to activate their business continuity plans.”
The company declined to say which of its clients was affected by the fire.
W.Media, a tech publisher focusing on cloud and data centre news, reported “significant disruptions” for the likes of Lazada and Bytedance. 
Alibaba Cloud has confirmed its services were affected. In an update at 8.04pm, it said high temperatures affected the network connectivity of some of its cloud products.
“If the subsequent temperature rise is not effectively controlled, the possibility of a complete network outage in Availability Zone C of Singapore will increase,” Alibaba added.
An availability zone is a distinct, isolated data centre location within a cloud provider’s infrastructure. Alibaba Cloud has three availability zones in Singapore.
CNA has contacted Alibaba, Lazada and Bytedance for more information.