CAIRO – 9 July 2025: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly visited the Ramses Telephone Exchange in downtown Cairo today, where a devastating fire claimed the lives of four workers and injured dozens more.
He ordered an assessment of the building’s structural safety.
The prime minister expressed appreciation for the civil defense personnel for their efforts in combating the fire and met with several of them to commend their dedication.
The fire, which erupted on Monday, temporarily disrupted phone and internet services, as well as some banking operations and online transactions, and led the Egyptian stock exchange to suspend trading on the following day.
Internet watchdog group NetBlocks reported that national connectivity in Egypt dropped to 62% of ordinary levels, according to Reuters.
The First Moments
Accompanying the premier, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat stated that the fire broke out on the seventh floor around 5 PM on Monday and spread to near parts of the building.
Despite the presence of self-extinguishing mechanisms and manual attempts to control the blaze, the rapid spread of the fire through cables affected adjacent rooms, rendering it uncontrollable by firefighting equipment, Talaat noted in a detailed report.
Civil defense teams arrived around 5:30 PM, but the fire had already spread to most floors and service areas, partially impacting communication services. Talaat mentioned that services were swiftly redirected to alternative exchanges to cover the majority of the company’s network.
Communication Services
In terms of ground data and voice services, the quality has returned to normal levels, except for customers in the vicinity of the Ramses building. Services were partially restored in this area with the remaining customers expected to enjoy services during Wednesday.
As for mobile voice services, the quality was significantly impacted for all four operators—Orange, Vodafone, Etisalat, and WE—beyond the exchange building. By this morning, service quality had improved to 95% of normal levels.
Meanwhile, within the vicinity of the exchange building, services suffered substantial impact and were restored after alternative solutions were employed. Quality will gradually improve until it is back to normal.
EgyptAir services were only affected in one area for two hours on the day of the incident, he added.
Banking, Stock Exchange
Talaat also reported that banking services were restored by Tuesday morning through network adjustments, except for one bank, whose issues have been resolved and will be fully operational by the end of the day. He did not mention the name of the bank.
Although services for the stock exchange were restored on Monday evening, the exchange opted to suspend trading on Tuesday to ensure stability before resuming normal operations, the minister said.
Ambulance, Emergency Services
Ambulance services faced initial connectivity issues in some governorates with Orange, Vodafone, and Etisalat, but service was restored by 4 PM on Tuesday, with alternative numbers provided to ensure access during the outage.
The police emergency service remained unaffected during the incident.
Cause, Aftermath
The bodies of the four engineers who died during the fire were recovered from the scene. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday that 27 of the 32 injured individuals who arrived at hospitals were discharged after their conditions stabilized.
Preliminary examinations indicated that the fire was likely caused by an electrical short circuit, a security source told the Egyptian state news agency MENA. Forensic experts will collect evidence from the fire scene to determine its causes.
The source also noted that civil protection personnel successfully prevented the fire from spreading to the entire central office building and the roofs of adjacent structures.
The communications minister said yesterday that the Ramses exchange, a pillar of Egypt's information system, is currently unusable until cooling and complete extinguishing processes are completed.
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