Google shifted the blame for widespread unavailability of its search services in China on Tuesday to the authorities in the country, after earlier in the day saying that a technical flaw in its own systems had caused the problem.

The confusion came as many Chinese internet users found themselves unable to reach Google’s services for the first time since it took steps last week to evade Chinese -censorship of politically sensitive searches. Google, along with many observers, has feared a backlash from -Beijing.

The problems began in the evening in China when searches for words as harmless as “dog” or “home” turned up a browser error. Google later said its users had experienced widespread disruption for several hours, before full service was resumed.