Australia telecom outage leaves three dead

The Australian government said Saturday that telco firm Optus "let Australians down" after three people died during a network outage that prevented calls to emergency services.

The outage impacted 600 people across South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory shortly after midnight on Thursday for 13 hours. Authorities said they were not informed of the incident or deaths until late Friday. South Australian Police said the deaths of an eight-week-old boy and a 68-year-old woman were linked to the outage.Optus CEO Stephen Rue said the outage occurred during a firewall update, and termed the deaths "absolutely tragic".