Overview
- NorthC’s datacenter in Almere, which caught fire Thursday morning, sent heavy smoke over nearby homes and prompted an NL-Alert telling people to close windows and switch off mechanical ventilation.
- Fire crews used airport crash tenders to cool a diesel tank and spent hours opening the façade to reach a hard‑to‑access technical room before declaring the blaze under control late Thursday.
- Officials said the building is too unstable to enter, the cause is not yet known, and a full damage inspection will follow to plan restoration of power and connectivity.
- Service outages spread to clients that host there, with the University of Utrecht closing its buildings Friday because access badges and core systems failed, while Transdev restored bus communications after earlier disruptions; Univé and CBS also reported problems.
- Rijkswaterstaat’s dismantling of the temporary layout at the IJsselbrug reduced lanes toward Utrecht and produced long delays across the Arnhem region Thursday, even as the bike path reopened early, while separate A4 and A20 crashes on Wednesday added an hour to peak commutes.