Internot
An earthquake off Taiwan on Boxing Day seriously disrupted Hong Kong's communications. Eight of 18 undersea cables linking the region to the rest of the world were severed or suffered major damage: China, Taiwan and Singapore were all affected, but Hong Kong was particularly badly hit. Many of the city's internet servers went down and other telecommunication services suffered major congestion.
For almost a week Hong Kongers struggled to reach websites in America and Europe. The problem was compounded by the fact that the main westward internet link had malfunctioned a fortnight before the tremor. Traders in North America and Europe had difficulty accessing Hong Kong's markets, and Hong Kong-based bankers struggled to trade offshore. Exporters had to dust off their fax machines to explain the silence to overseas distributors.
An optimistic statement from the Office of the Telecommunications Authority
suggested the problem would be fixed within a week. Indeed, most of the
internet was soon accessible in Hong Kong-albeit at greatly reduced speeds-but
it might take up to a month to finish repairing the cables, which are 4km below
the Pacific's surface.
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TELECOM-CITIES
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