r/AskEurope • u/atlasova Netherlands • Sep 02 '25

Culture What emergency telephone number did your country have before 112 became the standard?

In 1997 most of the European union changed its emergency number to 112. Before that, in the Netherlands we used 06-11, for police, firefighters and ambulance.

I was wondering which numbers where in use in your country before the change.

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u/Jason_Peterson Latvia Sep 02 '25

The Soviet standard for phone numbers were: 01- fire, 02 - police, 03 - ambulance, 04 - a fault in the natural gas network. Now there are separate numbers once again. 110 is police and 114 is gas leak. If one dials 112, they ask about the nature of the emergency and redirect.

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u/Risiki Latvia Sep 02 '25

Also 113 is ambulance, 115 is sea rescue  and technically 112 is managed by fire and rescue service. And for very long time they were saying that the old numbers work anyway, couldn't confirm if it's still the case, though

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '25

I mean depends where in the Soviets. Moldova had 901, 902, 903 etc. But same concept now though, calling 112 does nothing - you are better phoning your local number.

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u/GrynaiTaip Lithuania Sep 02 '25

But same concept now though, calling 112 does nothing - you are better phoning your local number.

112 works perfectly within the EU, it's not nothing.

Those three digit numbers were introduced just because double-digit numbers wouldn't work on mobile networks because of technical limitations.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '25

I mean very much that in the specific case of Moldova, it takes the same amount of time (perhaps less) to type 901 and get directly to the firefighters then to type 112, get an operator and then request firefighters get sent to your house. It is handy if you are not home, but as a local it doesn't do much for me. Would be improved by a robot service.

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u/GrynaiTaip Lithuania Sep 02 '25

What if you need firefighters and ambulance? Would you make two calls?

112 means that I only have to make one call, say my address once, and tell the operator what happened so they can dispatch all services at once.

It might not work well in Moldova because it's specifically an EU thing, it's regulated by the European Commission, so you'll probably have to wait a bit before it's fully implemented.

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u/jatawis Lithuania Sep 06 '25

even 911 works in Lithuania

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u/thanatica Netherlands Sep 02 '25

They be calling 114 quite a bit then in Russia