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HONG KONG: The strong Taiwan earthquake, measuring a magnitude of 7.1, damaged several undersea data cables in the region on Wednesday, jamming up the Internet, a Hong Kong phone operator said.
"Due to the earthquake that hit Taiwan last night, several undersea data cables were damaged," said a spokesman for PCCW, Hong Kong's biggest fixed-line operator.
"Data traffic to Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the United States is affected," he said, adding that the company was diverting the data and monitoring the restoration of the cables.
The spokesman said data capacity has been reduced to 50 percent, and that there had been an upsurge in attempts to accessing the web in the region as people were trying to get information about the quake.
He cautioned that some Internet users in the region could experience congestion over the next several days.
Singapore’s internet providers, StarHub and SingTel, were among those affected, as the incident has resulted in slow internet access.
Both companies said internet traffic diversion and restoration works are currently underway. SingTel added that its undersea cable system with Europe was not affected.
Major telecom operators in Japan also said damaged cables had jammed up phone lines and slowed down the Internet there.
NTT Communications, the internet and long-distance call business of Japan's largest telecom firm Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., said the worst hit were companies.
Some 1,400 toll-free phone lines as well as 84 international lines used internally by companies were affected by the damage to underwater cables, NTT spokesman Tomoyuki Okada said.
"Customers have found difficulty in making international calls and transmitting data," said Satoru Ito, a spokesman for KDDI Corp., one of Japan's major telecommunication companies.
He said the company was still probing the extent of the problem but that communications between Japan and other Asian countries were still running at a slower pace through a backup system.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange, the world's largest bourse outside of New York, was functioning without problems, a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong stock exchange said it was also working problems although several dealers said they have had problems accessing international news providers for information.
Most of them said they received complaints from customers who used the Internet for prices but the disruption has not affected trading.
"Some of our customers who use the Internet complained that they can't look at stock prices online. That's our main problem," said Jackson Wong, investment manager at Tanrich Securities.
"That has increased our workload because we have customers who keep calling and asking us the prices that we can get from the trading floor but in general our service has not been disrupted much," he said.
Other stock markets in the region appeared to be operating without major problems, with several setting all-time highs as a recent bull run continued.
It is not immediately clear when the damage will be repaired.
An official at Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom Co. (CHT) also reported that the earthquakes have disrupted international phone calls to and from Asian countries.
Fortunately, mobile and domestic phone calls in Taiwan remain unaffected. - AFP/CNA/so
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