UPDATE: 911 service back-up in South, Central and North Okanagan

The 911 emergency phone line that went down across parts of B.C. yesterday is now up and running.

The emergency phone line was reported down at 2:30 p.m. May 5, across the South Okanagan, Central Okanagan and the North Okanagan.

At around 7:45 p.m. May 5 E-Comm 911 confirmed the 911 line was working again.

According to an E-Comm 911 media release, the outage affected the Regional Districts of the Central Okanagan, North Okanagan, Okanagan-Similkameen, Thompson-Nicola, Columbia-Shuswap, Squamish-Lillooet (North), Central Kootenay, East Kootenay and Kootenay-Boundary.

"The cause of the outage is currently under investigation with TELUS technicians continuing to work through the night. Further details will be provided in the coming days," E-Comm 911 said in a media release.

A release from the District of Coldstream had said that a Telus outage was causing disruptions to 911 calls primarily through landlines. The District suggests if you have an emergency, call 911 as usual but if you get a busy signal, call your local non-emergency line.

E-Comm advised anyone in the South and Central Okanagan that had to call 911 to instead call their local police non-emergency.

It also asked people to leave non-emergency lines free for emergency callers, so not to call with non-urgent matters currently.

All police non-emergency numbers can be found here.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Ben Bulmer or call (250) 309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.