Crowdstrike and Microsoft: What we know about global IT outage

The problem emerged in a piecemeal fashion, with first reports coming out of Australia.

Payment systems went down at Australian stores including Woolworths, while financial institutions such as the National Australia Bank were also affected.

Then the issues spread to the US. The state of Alaska warned that its emergency services were affected, while several of the country’s airlines – United, Delta and American Airlines – grounded their flights around the globe.

Australian carriers Virgin Australia and Jetstar also had to delay or cancel flights as departure screens went blank at Sydney airport.

Tokyo-Narita and Delhi airports said services had been affected. European airports reported that the outage was causing delays, with long queues reported at London’s Stansted and Gatwick and Amsterdam’s Schiphol.

Ryanair said it was experiencing “potential disruptions across the network”, which it said were due to a third-party outage.

Broadcasters were also caught up in the chaos, including Sky News in the UK, which is off air.

As the full extent of the disruption became clear, more firms and institutions started reporting problems.

The London Stock Exchange said it was working as normal, but there were issues with its news service, used by companies to report market-sensitive information in a timely way.

Israel says 15 hospitals have switched to manual processes but this has not affected medical treatment. Ambulances are being told to take new cases to other hospitals.

And Poland’s largest container terminal, the Baltic Hub in the northern city of Gdansk, has said the outage is “hampering terminal operations” and has asked companies not to send containers to the port.

In the UK, railway companies have reported delays and said they were experiencing “widespread IT issues”, while some doctors’ surgeries in England reported issues with booking appointments.

The problems have extended to upmarket UK bakery chain Gail’s, which has said it is currently unable to take in-store payments.