The Fire Control Number 101 went out of service on Wednesday after a telephone cable connecting the headquarters of the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services (TNFRS) here was damaged during road digging.
Not just the 101 service, the landlines to all officers at the TNFRS headquarters went off line due to the digging.
The entire stretch of Rukmini Lakshmipathy Salai, where the building is located, has been dug up by the Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board to lay water pipelines.
Residents who tried to reach the control room when a fire broke out in Triplicane could not get through. Alternately, they had to call the police control room at 100. A senior official of the TNFRS said the landlines of the office were not working because of damage to the cable network. The service would be restored by Wednesday night, he said.