The popular international microblogging service Twitter crashed for around 30 minutes on Thursday, leaving millions of users without updates from friends, celebrities and news providers. “Howdy folks, looks like we’re experiencing a small interruption of Twitter.com and some mobile clients. Thanks for your patience!” the US firm wrote on its support site. Twitter accounts accessed by AFP from its Washington office showed no or patchy updates from around 1600 GMT, but the service was gradually restored, with many users posting messages expressing relief. Last month the service was taken down for several hours by what the company described as a “cascading bug,” but the cause of Thursday’s problem was not immediately clear.