UPDATE: Instagram is now back online after almost an hour-long outage. It's still unclear what caused the problems but users are now able to access their account.

ORIGINAL STORY: Instagram users are facing a morning without access to the popular social media service as both the app and website appear to be down and not working.

Problems started at around 8.20am with thousands of reports across the UK and many parts of Europe.

Independent website monitor, Down Detector, is showing a surge of issues with users currently unable to access or use the app.

Down Detector is an independent website which tracks social mentions around certain topics to detect outages across the globe.

When trying to access the website users are faced with the error "5XX Server error" and the app displays the message "could not refresh feed."

Users have flooded social media sites, including Twitter, to share their dismay with one Instagram fan saying: "#instagram is down every one panic this is the end of the world run for you’re lives."

Whilst another simply said: "Instagram down. Why ???"