The phones don't work

One of our friends who is here in India right now is from the UK. As a result of today’s tragedy in London, she was trying to get a hold of her mom in the greater London area, someone we work with as well. We also tried phoning her mom for her, and eventually got through to her. She told us she would call right back. When she called back, we told her that her daughter was urgently trying to reach her. She then went on to explain (while talking to us on the phone mind you) that in light of the incident today, none of the cell phones or land lines were working in or out of the London area. We talked to her twice in the span of ten minutes on phone lines that were not working apparently.

(We told her we would pass on the message to her daughter rather than further complicate the situation by asking her what method she was using to call us. That might have been too much on a day like today.)