A powerful earthquake off the southern coast of Singapore on Tuesday severed the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 submarine cable, the region’s major underwater communications link. The earthquake was reported to measure 7.1 on the Richter Scale.
The severance disrupted high-speed Internet connections between Europe, the United States, and Asia. Countries affected most substantially include China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan.
“Since yesterday, we have started re-routing the affected traffic to other underseas cables,” said a spokesperson for Singaporean ISP Starhub. “Our engineers have been working round the clock and are doing their best to rectify the matter as soon as possible.”
Yet the damage remains significant. Korea’s KT Corp noted that 27of its corporate customers lost their Web connections.
Lin Jen-hung, a spokesman for Taiwanese telecommunications monopoly Chunghwa Telecom, said it would take two to three weeks to repair the undersea cables and restore full service.
