Prateek Tanmay
3 min readUpdated: Jun 24, 2026 10:30 PM IST
Two decades of data lost for an Indian international SIM cards seller; losses worth millions of dollars and customers that may never come back for another; and even Google Cloud’s network connection woes being allegedly traced to the same cause: a fire in Delhi.
A blaze at a Delhi data centre jointly operated by Tata Communications and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres has reportedly caused extensive damage to the facility and its clients are counting massive losses, according to a report by news agency Reuters.
The fire was reportedly so severe that it completely burned server racks and electrical infrastructure and the ceiling panels collapsed and debris was left strewn across the floor in its aftermath.
It also “caused extensive damage” and affected services, Tata Communications unit Novamesh said a June 15 letter to Matrix Cellular, Reuters reported.
“Despite our ongoing best efforts to recover the data, the severity of the damage … presents significant challenges to the recovery of the affected data and systems,” the letter said.
Gaurav Khanna, the CEO of international SIM card provider Matrix, revealed to Reuters that they have “potentially lost access to over 20 years of accumulated operational and business data stored in the affected Tata data centre”.
“If there is a backup, it should have been restored by now,” Khanna said, raising doubts regarding the data recovery.
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Tata Communications had claimed to have activated business continuity protocols to minimise disruption to customers and services following the incident.
Google Cloud’s network disruptions
The impact of the Delhi data centre fire extended beyond local operations, with Google Cloud previously reporting network disruptions across parts of India linked to the incident. It, however, didn’t name Tata Communications.
In a statement, Google Cloud said, “A fire at a third-party data centre facility required an emergency power shutdown of networking equipment, isolating a non-compute local Point of Presence (POP) in Delhi and reducing available network capacity in the metro area.”
The company said the emergency shutdown affected network infrastructure in Delhi, resulting in reduced capacity and service disruptions for some users.
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An internet service provider, R2 Net says it may clock losses totalling up to $2 million. Then there’s the potential loss of customers due to the disruption, CEO Sanjay Singh told Reuters.
The fire affected “vital tracking data stored in servers and used by law enforcement to monitor illegal internet activity,” he told the news agency.
The fire broke out on June 5
The fire broke out around 2.47 am on June 5, 2026, at the five-storey building opposite Savitri Cinema, where Tata Communications’ office was located on the third floor.
At the time, Delhi fire authorities had said they were yet to determine the cause of the fire that severely damaged the Tata Communications-ST Telemedia data centre. However, the authority said that the blaze originated in the facility’s lithium battery units.
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Tata Communications serves around 300 of the Fortune 500 companies and connects nearly 80 per cent of businesses to cloud centres globally.
