World · Europe · 5 hrs ago
Microsoft outage linked to chlorine incident at German hotel pool
Fifteen guests at a German theme park hotel had breathing problems after too much chlorine entered its pool.
The incident happened at Phantasialand, where an automatic system monitors chlorine levels and sends warnings by email.
The warning email did not reach hotel staff during a major outage affecting Microsoft's Exchange cloud service.
Firefighters said 15 people needed medical triage, and four were taken to hospital; one stayed under observation.
The outage was linked to a chlorine gas leak, though the sources do not give further details about how the dosing system malfunctioned.
Microsoft said it had fixed the outage by the morning of November 14, and the incident has raised concerns about relying on email for safety warnings.
Fifteen guests at a hotel in Germany’s Phantasialand theme park reportedly had breathing problems after excessive chlorine entered a swimming pool.
An automatic warning email about high chlorine levels did not reach hotel staff during a Microsoft outage.
The email-based monitoring system was used to control chlorine dosing at the pool.
The fire department said 15 people required triage, and four were taken to hospital.
Microsoft said the outage had been fixed by the morning of November 14, European time.
- Who
- Fifteen hotel guests were affected. The fire department dispatched 40 first responders.
- What
- Excessive chlorine entered a hotel pool after an automatic warning email failed to arrive.
- When
- Friday afternoon; the sources do not state the calendar date of the incident.
- Where
- A hotel at Phantasialand, a theme park in Germany.
- Why
- The email warning about high chlorine levels did not arrive during a Microsoft outage affecting Exchange cloud infrastructure.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
The chlorine incident occurred at the hotel, according to a Facebook post by the responding fire department.
Microsoft said it had completed a fix for the outage, European time.
- Guests affected
- 15
- First responders dispatched
- 40
- Taken to hospital
- 4
- Hospital observation
- 1 person remained under observation
- Hotel location
- Phantasialand, Germany
- Monitoring method
- Email-based chlorine dosing system
2 sources
What people are saying
maintenance safety system
Posts on X
We have completed our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions. Further updates can be found at MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center.