Oil depot blast takes down IT systems

Local authorities - and the Labour Party - are still feeling the after-effects of the giant oil depot fire which has knocked out important IT systems.

Wandsworth Borough Council said two computers used to run housing benefits, council tax and housing repairs systems "are out of action" as a result of the fire in Hemel Hempstead.

It said both servers are hosted by Northgate Information Solutions whose premises back on to the oil depot.

The council launched its disaster recovery plan following the explosion and said all other council IT services are operating normally.

While recovery work continues residents are asked not to contact the council with council tax or housing benefit queries.

Haringey council has also suffered outages because of the fires. It said "administrative services" were provided though the data centre there and said: "This may result in some disruption of some payment services."

But it emphasised that other services such as refuse collection, libraries and schools are not affected.

The council said it was working with its supplier to keep any administrative delays to a minimum.

The Labour Party also had to replace its normal website, with a posting on its temporary site noting "part of the office of our hosting company were extensively damaged, resulting in the loss of our site. We will be back online as quickly as possible".

IT companies Northgate and 3Com and online fashion retailer ASOS were some of the businesses affected by the blast on Sunday morning.