Ships Ready to Repair Undersea Cables

Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom Co. said two repair ships will soon start fixing undersea cables damaged last week by an earthquake off the island's coast that resulted in a major disruption to telephone and Internet links across Asia. The two ships will take two to three weeks to complete their task, said a senior official at Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest telecommunications company, the International Herald Tribune reported. One of the ships is Japanese registered and sailed to Taiwan from Japan. The other, British registered, sailed to Taiwan from the Philippines, he said. Both are specially equipped to repair undersea cables and had to complete other repair work before setting out for Taiwan. The Dec. 26 quake — measured at magnitude 6.7 by Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau and 7.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey — snapped undersea cables off Taiwan, cutting telecommunications across the region and leaving companies scrambling to reroute traffic through satellites and cables that were not damaged. By the end of January or early February, all major cables serving Hong Kong and other countries in the region should be fully repaired, said another official. (Source: International Herald Tribune)