Cable connecting Tongan islands could take year to fix | RNZ News 1:17 pm on 3 March 2022
Tonga Cable Ltd says the country’s domestic telecommunications cable may take up to a year to fix.
The cable was ripped apart by January’s devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami.
Tonga Cable chief executive James Panuve says up to 110km of a special cable may have to be manufactured in France, if it can’t source a spare cable of the same type elsewhere.
The cable ship Reliance departed the cable site on Monday after successfully recovering both ends of the domestic cable.
The Southern Cross Cable, connecting Tonga to the world, was repaired just over a week ago.
Panuve said the south end of the broken cable was found 31km from Tongatapu and the north end was located about 136km from Tongatapu. There is gap of around 110km between the two broken ends.
“It has attempted to recover the middle section but it appears that the cable has been deeply buried under debris from the volcano eruption of 15 January. Without proper survey equipment it is hard to tell what has happened to the cable system. Water depth in this area is between 1.6 to 1.8km,” he said.
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