Cloudflare counts 49 internet disruptions in Q3 2026, led by Iraq exam shutdowns and power failures

Cloudflare's quarterly disruption review identified 49 internet outages between July and September 2026, with government-directed shutdowns, power grid failures and natural disasters behind most of them. The analysis, published on the Cloudflare blog, draws on Cloudflare Radar, which monitors traffic flowing across a network the company says handles more than 20% of web traffic.

Shutdowns led the count, mostly in Iraq

Government-directed shutdowns were the largest category, accounting for 19 of the 49 incidents Cloudflare Radar recorded. Eighteen of those were exam-related shutdowns in Iraq, imposed on a strict schedule between 03:30 and 04:00 UTC, each lasting roughly 15 to 90 minutes. Most occurred between August 26 and September 28, with three more in early July.

According to Cloudflare, citing Internet Society Pulse, Iraq's Minister of Communication Mustafa Sanand confirmed the shutdowns in a video message and pledged to develop a digital system that would remove the need for centralized exam distribution, and with it the need to cut internet access on exam days.

Syria and Sudan, which have frequently used exam-related shutdowns in recent years, recorded none this quarter. Cloudflare notes this likely reflects differences in exam calendars rather than a shift in policy. The company also flagged renewed conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region as an example of how quickly connectivity becomes entangled in a broader political and humanitarian crisis.

Power failures hit ten countries

Electricity was the other dominant factor. Cloudflare Radar observed 14 power-related disruptions across 10 countries, making power failure the second most common cause by incident count.

Cuba experienced four grid-related outages, at least one per month, on July 6, July 14, August 3 and during a three-day blackout from September 18 to 20. Traffic losses ranged from 18% on July 14 to 59% on August 3.

Honduras illustrated how a single facility can take a country offline. A power failure on September 10 at an interconnection facility affected at least 11 major providers, and national HTTP traffic fell by 63% over roughly three hours. Two providers, Telecomunicaciones de Guatemala (AS14754) and mobile carrier Celtel (AS52262), were unaffected, which Cloudflare suggests may be because their connectivity relies more heavily on infrastructure outside the country.

In Sevastopol, Ukraine, a July 5 power outage caused an eight-hour blackout during which HTTP traffic dropped by 98%. On August 12, drone strikes targeting energy infrastructure caused a ten-hour disruption with traffic declines of up to 95%. Cloudflare presents these incidents as evidence that conflict, energy infrastructure and connectivity are fundamentally intertwined.

A separate case worth watching: on August 13, a cooling system failure at a data center in Phoenix, United States, caused a near-total drop in traffic from Namecheap (AS22612). Cloudflare says such outages will grow in importance as cooling systems become increasingly critical.

Further power-related disruptions appeared in Eswatini, Botswana, Tajikistan, Kenya, Saint Lucia, Georgia and Gabon, including deliberate load-shedding in Eswatini to manage constrained supply.

Natural disasters damaged infrastructure

Natural disasters accounted for five disruptions during the quarter.

Guam was struck by Super Typhoon Bavi less than three months after Super Typhoon Sinlaku had already knocked out the island's connectivity once this year. Despite a state of emergency declared before peak conditions, the Guam Power Authority reported that strong winds brought down key transmission lines, leaving only about 25% of distribution feeders online at one point. Internet traffic took multiple days to recover.

In Japan, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake prompted evacuation orders affecting roughly 150,000 people in Kumamoto. The connectivity impact appeared mainly in desktop traffic, while mobile traffic remained largely unaffected.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Colombia in August caused building collapses and mass evacuations, plus a four-and-a-half-day internet disruption. Damage to fiber-optic infrastructure drove a significant traffic drop from Colombia Telecomunicaciones (AS3816).

Flash floods in Nepal on August 26 swept through the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river systems, damaging power and other essential services across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhaling districts. The resulting outage lasted two hours, with HTTP traffic down as much as 18%.

Why it matters

Cloudflare's data is a reminder that the internet's resilience ultimately rests on unglamorous physical systems: power grids, transmission lines, interconnection facilities and cooling equipment. The Honduras event shows how concentrated traffic exchange points can become single points of failure for an entire country, while the Phoenix cooling failure hints at risks that grow alongside data center density. At the same time, the single largest category of disruption was deliberate, with governments choosing to switch networks off, often on a predictable schedule. And outages in the United States, Japan and Portugal, countries Cloudflare describes as having a relatively strong history of internet resilience, underline that no country is immune.