Big Quake Cuts Communications in Taiwan

Taiwanese rescuers clear rubble from a collapsed building after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006, in Pingtung County, 350 kilometers (217 miles) south west of Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan's telephone communications with neighboring Asian countries were cut off Wednesday, hours after a powerful earthquake struck the southern part of the island, killing two and triggering a regional tsunami alert. The quake, which hit late Tuesday, came on the second anniversary of the devastating tsunami that took more than 200,000 lives in southern Asia. (AP Photo/David Lee) (David Lee - AP)

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Undersea fiber-optic cables were damaged by a powerful earthquake off the southern tip of Taiwan, causing the largest outage of telephone and Internet service in years and demonstrating the vulnerability of the global telecommunications network.

Two residents were killed and more than 40 injured in the magnitude-6.7 tremor that hit offshore, near the southern Taiwanese town of Hengchun late Tuesday.

Up to a dozen fiber-optic cables cross the ocean floor south of Taiwan, carrying traffic between China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, the U.S. and the island itself. Chunghwa Telecom Co., Taiwan's largest phone company, said the quake damaged several of them, and repairs could take two to three weeks.

A Taiwanese telecommunications official said Thursday that 95 percent of Asia's earthquake-disrupted data transmission service and 80 percent of its phone service will be restored by 11 p.m. EST.

Lin Jen-lung, vice-general manager of Chunghwa, also said that four ships with crews to repair the two undersea data transmission cables ruptured in Taiwan's powerful earthquake will arrive in the affected area on Jan. 2.

Taiwan lost almost all of its telephone capacity to Japan and mainland China. Service to the United States also was hard hit, with 60 percent of capacity lost.

Later, Chunghwa said connections to the U.S., China and Canada were mostly restored, but 70 percent of the capacity to Japan was still down, along with 90 percent of the capacity to Southeast Asia.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with the Washington-based research firm TeleGeography, said it was the largest telecommunications failure in years.

"The magnitude of the break is surprising because Taiwan is otherwise a very well connected system," Beckert said. He noted that cables get cut and disrupted all the time, but there's usually enough backup capacity on other lines to keep traffic flowing without customers noticing an interruption.

But with multiple cables broken in one blow, Internet traffic around the Pacific was disrupted. Hong Kong telephone company PCCW Ltd., which also provides Internet service, said the quake cut its data capacity in half. Internet access was cut or severely slowed in Beijing, said an official from China Netcom, China's No. 2 phone company.

The official, who would not give his name, said the cause was thought to be the earthquake, but he had no further details.

A Hong Kong telecommunications official said Thursday that six of the seven major cables serving the Chinese territory were damaged in Taiwan's earthquake.