text: Crash: Today's catastrophic Bloomberg crash is rumoured to have been caused by a spilt can of Coke in the City of London office . It might just have been the most expensive can of Coke ever. For a massive computer glitch that halted trading in stock exchanges around the world yesterday is being blamed on a spilt fizzy drink. Dealing across Europe and Asia was thrown into chaos by the crash of the server at Bloomberg's offices in the City of London. Bloomberg's computer system is the world's largest dealing platform and is used by most banks and trading floors. More than 300,000 screens suddenly went offline for several hours just after the start of trading, leaving brokers unable to work. Trillions of pounds of trading had to be stopped or diverted and the Government's attempts to sell £3billion of bonds, known as gilts, on the debt markets had to be delayed for several hours until the problem was fixed. Bloomberg blamed a 'combination of hardware and software failures in the network' for the outage, which was first reported at around 8.20am and lasted into the afternoon. But reports from inside the company suggested that a spilled can of Coke in one of the server rooms had been responsible for knocking out systems across two continents. The UK's Debt Management Office had to delay the £3billion sale of Government bonds because the blackout meant potential investors did not have access to the information they needed to make a deal. A DMO spokesman said the delay was 'due to ongoing technical issues with the third party platform' but the sale eventually went ahead. Stock market sources said it was highly unusual for a sale of debt to be delayed by a technical issue. David Buik at broker Panmure Gordon said it was regrettable that the auction had been delayed but would not have any long term consequences for the Government. Essential to traders: Bloomberg's computer system is the world's largest dealing platform and is used by most banks and trading floors. Today's glitch (pictured above) caused chaos across Europe and Asia . The outage saw screens around the world display a message saying: '*** CONNECTION STATUS *** Connecting...' Bloomberg, founded by the US billionaire Michael Bloomberg, makes more than £6billion a year from leasing its hi-tech software to banks and trading floorsacross the world. Each machine costs £13,000 a year. The computers, which typically have two or more screens, provide real-time trading information of share prices and commodities such as crude oil or gold. But they are also used to buy and sell shares, bonds and other financial instruments – meaning that many of the traders were unable to work without them. An influential City boss has claimed today's Bloomberg crash was the worst he's seen in up to 15 years. Steve Collins, global head of dealing at asset management firm London & Capital, told the Guardian: 'I haven't seen it go down like this for 10 or 15 years. 'Bloomberg is usually the one stable thing; it's the thing that everyone can't live without.' He said traders at London & Capital were left 'twiddling their thumbs' after their terminals went down. He added: 'Big banks will pump thousands of orders across Bloomberg, so the outage had quite an effect on the market.' Presumably overwhelmed, Bloomberg's helpline was not answering calls during the catastrophic glitch. At first there were suggestions that the outage could have been caused by hackers. Cyber security expert Greg Sims from UK firm Glasswall said the glitch looked suspicious. He said: 'I can't say categorically that it was a cyber attack, but if you look at what's been going on recently, you know that large organisations like this are always targets. 'These guys who hack into these things are very very clever people and can get into large organisations and do some serious nasty damage.' A spokesman for Bloomberg said: 'Significant but not all parts of our network experienced a disruption. 'We experienced a combination of hardware and software failures in the network, which caused an excessive volume of network traffic. 'This led to customer disconnections as a result of the machines being overwhelmed. 'We discovered the root cause quickly, isolated the faulty hardware, and restarted the software. We are reviewing our multiple redundant systems, which failed to prevent this disruption. We apologise to our customers.' According to BBC journalist Joe Lynam, Bloomberg  has stressed that Coke was not to blame for the outage today, not was cyber crime. In a Twitter statement the company said: 'There is no indication at this point that this is anything other than an internal network issue.' Bloomberg terminals, known as Bloomberg Professional, are used by more than 315,000 finance professionals across the globe, and they are a crucial part of the daily flow of financial markets. The machines, which cost subscribers more than £13,000 a year, provide a vast share of the company's £6 billion in annual revenue. Many of the bigger banks and financial institutions have  backup systems as well as alternative data suppliers, with products from competitors such as Thomson Reuters in place to avoid a major disruption. Vital to traders: One of Bloomberg's terminals, used by more than 315,000 finance professionals . The computers, which typically have two or more screens, provide real-time trading information of share prices and commodities such as crude oil or gold. But they are also used to buy and sell shares, bonds and other financial instruments – meaning that many of the traders were unable to work without them. At first there were suggestions that the outage today could have been caused by hackers. The outage saw screens around the world display a message saying: '*** CONNECTION STATUS *** Connecting...' Some systems came back online shortly after 9am, but other users continued to report the glitch or slow performance throughout the morning. And in a message earlier, it said that it 'had restored service to most customers and are making progress in bringing all parts of the network back online. We apologize to our customers'. Commenting on the Coke can rumour, a Bloomberg spokesman told MailOnline: 'That didn't happen.' Some financial workers saw the funny side of today's crash while also pointing out that the last tweet sent my Bloomberg before the outage was an article on the dangers of hacking. Market analyst Dan Davis tweeting: 'Currently printing 5,000 'I survived the great global Bloomberg outage of 2015' T-shirts.' And another Twitter user, barnejek, offered a solution to Greece's financial problems, posting: 'Come on @yanisvaroufakis and @tsipras_eu ! With Bloomberg down, this is your chance to default and exit the EMU without any repercussions.'
target: Huge computer glitch prevented deals in stock exchanges across the world .
  Bloomberg down for several hours just after trading began this morning .
  Europe and Asia thrown into chaos after server crashed in London office .
  And reports from inside the company say a spilt can of Coke was to blame .