Six Brazilian States left without communications to outside world!

Six States in Brazil were without telephone or internet connectivity from December 21, to December 29 due to a fire (?!). I can find no information on this matter in any major news source, but a friend who lives there assures me of the veracity of this information. It seems rather odd that so many people would be cut-off from the outside world, and nobody knows anything about it.
As soon as I have more information from my friend, I will post it.
Probably I will just come back and edit this post.
In the meantime, if YOU know anything about this matter, please contact me or comment here.

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OKAY, Updates. 2011/01/01 – 9:45 am EST
Happy New Year!
Now, the fire was in the Telephone Plant in Itaigara area of Salvador, Bahia, apparently, and on December 21, starting in the battery room (I don’t know what that is).
I’m trying to figure out how this could causes outages in 6 states, when Itaigara is on a peninsular extension of the land surrounding the Baia de Todos os Santos (All Saints Bay). I suppose there are technical aspects beyond my comprehension involved, since I’m not a telephony technician.  In any case, I CAN, now, find information, but only in Portuguese.

The Brazilian telecom company, Oi, in some areas is distributing, temporarily and for free, 3G mini-modems and emergency phone devices, a a bandaid until the appropriate sutures can be applied. If you can read Português-Brasileiro, there’s more information here (pdf file) regarding the distribution of these temporary solutions, and a list of area codes affected.
Additionally, this pdf notice indicates that they are projecting that broadband internet services should be completely restored to all Oi customers by January 20. Both pdf files are from the company, Oi, itself, and in Brazilian Portuguese, of course.

With this information, I was able to conduct a search for “incêndio, Itaigara, Brasil” and found numerous articles about the fire.

Os Homens chegam! Firemen respond to blaze at Brazilian telecom, OI, in Salvador, Bahia

“Um incêncio no bairro do Itaigara, na manhã desta terça-feira (21), atingiu a Central Telefônica da Empresa de Telecomunicações OI, em Salvador. Segundo testemunhas, o fogo teria começado na sala de baterias da empresa.

Por conta do incidente, parte dos serviços disponibilizados pela empresa, como telefonia celular e conexão à internet, estão interrompidos. Usuários da telefonia em Aracaju também registraram problemas no sistema.” (correio24horas.com article)

Translation:
A fire in the neighborhood of Itaigara, this Wednesday morning (12/21) affected the Telephone Plant of the Telecommunications Company, OI, in Salvador. According to witnesses, the fire had begun in the company’s battery room.

Due to the fire, part of the services provided by the company, such as cell phone and internet connection, are interrupted. Telephone customers in Aracaju also reported problems in the system. (translation provided by BaldwinLinguas.com)

The article goes on to explain that even the local emergency reporting system (there it is 190, as opposed to our 911) was interrupted and that locals would have to use the Police Department’s full phone numbers (9996-1880 or 9626-8887) to reach emergency services.

Another article (pt-br) indicates that R$70 million (seventy million Brazilian Reals) in damages were caused.

According to this article, two children, aged 2 and 6 years, were victims of the fire. I can find no other reports of casualties.

This article (pt-br) indicates that the government (Procon, arm of the State of Bahia’s Secretary of Justice, Citizenship and Human Rights) is investigating, and ordered the company to inform customers of projected resolution.

All articles I can find on this matter are in Brazilian Portuguese, so far (Bom que posso ler português, ne! Good thing that I can read Portuguese, eh!).   Not one seems to indicate the full magnitude of the outage, how many people were without services, nor how many have, so far, had service restored.