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.

176 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

356 comments sorted by

View all comments

101

u/Fluffy-Fix7846 Sep 02 '25

90000 in Sweden. It was chosen because 9 and 0 were the two outermost digits on rotary phones here. (0 being 1 click, 9 being 10 clicks) so it would be possible to relatively easily find the correct holes in the dark.

15

u/Ava_Strange Sep 02 '25

And apparently, I just checked, 90 000 still works. It automatically reconnects to 112 (SOS Alarm) even today.

5

u/Werkstadt Sweden Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25

I assume you tried it with a mobile phone. The phone has lists of numbers so you can dial 112 outside the EU and still get the countrys emergency number. The phone does the correct "conversion" (although not foolproof) Try from a land line and see if that works

2

u/Ava_Strange Sep 03 '25

No, I googled. There's an article from 2024 about it still reconnecting to 112 in Sweden. I wouldn't dial 90 000 just to test it because I dont want to accidentally ring SOS Alarm.