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2w ago

AWS UAE Availability Zone Hit by Unidentified Objects, Triggering Fire and Outage

AWS recommends moving workloads to other zones during the outage.

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Signage for Amazon Web Services (AWS) is displayed at National Retail Federation (NRF) 2026: Retail's Big Show, in New York City, U.S., January 12, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
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Overview

  • AWS said the ME-CENTRAL-1 zone mec1-az2 was struck around 4:30 p.m. Dubai time, causing sparks and a fire that led firefighters to cut power, including generators.
  • Connectivity in the affected zone degraded with increased errors on EC2 and networking APIs, and reporting cited impacts to EBS volumes and database services.
  • The company is routing traffic away from the site and advises customers to use alternate Availability Zones or regions, with other zones in the UAE region operating normally.
  • AWS reported significant signs of recovery for some systems but no estimated time to restore power, noting it is awaiting permission to switch power back on.
  • The cause remains under investigation, and AWS has not identified the objects, with no confirmed link to regional projectile activity reported the same day in the UAE.