Undersea cable fault could cut off Tonga from rest of the world for weeks

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Fixing a break in a fibre-optic cable on a seabed is far more complicated than on land.

Singapore Headlines News

Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines

By Praveen Menon and Tom Westbrook

Saturday's explosion of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean so that connectivity was lost on the line, operated by Tonga Cable Ltd, in waters about 37 kilometres offshore. That covers the eight or nine days the Reliance, the specialist cable repair ship in Port Moresby, will take to reach the affected area, while the crew also needs safety clearance for the repairs, he added.

The Reliance, owned by U.S. firm SubCom, a builder of underwater cable networks that is the repair contractor for more than 50,000 km of cable in the South Pacific, has completed five-yearly maintenance in Singapore. SubCom, owned by U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, said it was working with Tonga Cable Ltd to mobilise the Reliance for the cable repairs, while it evaluated crew and ship safety.

Then a repair ship heads to the site of the break, where it sends down a submersible or deep water hook to grab the cable and pull it up to make the repair. More than 99% of global international data traffic is still carried on a network of about 280 submarine cables stretching more than a million kilometres .

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