Internet and phone services in Orkney and Shetland have been disrupted because of damage to a subsea cable.
Shetland Telecom said the Shefa-2 cable between Orkney and Banff sustained damage at about 03:00.
The switchboard at Balfour Hospital in Kirkwall is currently down, with patients asked to call a mobile number instead.
The cable, which links Orkney, Shetland and the Faroe Islands to mainland Scotland, was last damaged three years ago in an incident thought to have been because of a fishing vessel.
Communications in Shetland were severely disrupted in October 2022 when the south subsea cable between the islands and the mainland was cut.
Police declared a major incident with landlines and mobiles unusable.
At the time, BBC News heard reports that many shops were unable to take card payments.
The scale of the current incident is still being investigated.
