8 August 2011 Last updated at 11:09 ET

Edinburgh Book Festival website hit by lightning strike

The Edinburgh Book Festival's website has been taken out of action by a lightning strike which damaged an electricity transformer in Ireland.

Data centres in Dublin, which specialise in cloud computing and internet hosting services, were badly hit by severe weather on Sunday night.

Back-up generators for the data centres, used by computer giants Amazon and Microsoft, were also affected.

The Book Festival said it did not know when the website would be back online.

However, a spokesperson said they were still selling tickets over the phone and at the box office.

The Edinburgh Book Festival begins on Saturday and will host more than 700 events.

More than 60 book festival events have already sold out, including Caitlin Moran, Neil Gaiman, AC Grayling, Simon Callow and Melvyn Bragg.

BBC Edinburgh, Fife and East

Travel News

Weather

Edinburgh, Fife & East

Min. Night 8 °C

Features & Analysis

Elsewhere on the BBC

  • Five very different people talk to Michelle Fleury (top centre)) about their working lives in Quito, EcaudorWorking Lives Ecuador

    The BBC's Michelle Fleury meets five very different people who live and work in Quito

Programmes

  • XBox OneClick Watch

    How far has Microsoft moved from a purist's game console with the XBox One?

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.