Asia quakes damage cables; Internet, banks affected

[Player-X]

Asia quakes damage cables; Internet, banks affected
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Telecommunications around Asia were severely disrupted on Wednesday after earthquakes off Taiwan damaged undersea cables, slowing Internet services and hindering financial transactions, particularly in the currency market.
Banks and businesses across the region reported problems with communications, with some telephone lines cut and Internet access slowing to a crawl.
South Korea's top fixed-line and broadband service provider, KT Corp, said in a statement that six submarine cables were knocked out by Tuesday night's earthquakes.
"Twenty-seven of our customers were hit, including banks and churches," a KT spokesman said. "It is not known yet when we can fully restore the services."
Banks in Seoul said foreign exchange trading had been affected.
"Trading of the Korean won has mostly halted due to the communication problem," said a dealer at one domestic bank.
Some disruption was also reported in the important Tokyo currency market but the EBS system that handles much dollar/yen trading appeared to be working.
Global information company Reuters Group Plc said all users of its services in Japan and South Korea had been affected.
One Tokyo foreign exchange trader said: "There are many currencies in which market-making is being conducted via Reuters and such currencies such as the Australian dollar and the British pound are in a very tenuous situation now."
STATE SECRET
In China, trading in currencies and copper appeared to be normal and both the Shanghai stock market and money market were working.
But China Telecommunications Group, the country's biggest fixed-line telephone operator and parent of China Telecom Corp., said the earthquakes had affected lines "from the Chinese mainland to places including the Taiwan area, the United States and Europe, and many have been cut".
"Internet connections have been seriously affected, and phone links and dedicated business lines have also been affected to some degree," it said.
Officials declined to give further details. "Undersea communications cables fall in the area of state secrets," said a ministry of communications official in Beijing.
The main quake, measured by Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau at magnitude 6.7 and at magnitude 7.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey, struck off Taiwan's southern coast at 1226 GMT on Tuesday. Two people were killed.
Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom said two of four major undersea cables out of Taiwan had been affected. Voice circuits had been reduced to 40 per cent of capacity to the United States and just 2 per cent to most parts of Southeast Asia.
KDDI Corp., Japan's second-largest telecoms company, said communications along submarine cables out of Japan went through Taiwan before reaching Southeast Asian countries, which was leading to disruption.
But it said communications were unlikely to break down completely since there were alternative lines.
PCCW, Hong Kong's main fixed-line telecoms provider, said several undersea cables it part-owned had been damaged. "Data transfer is down by half," a spokeswoman said.
Both Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Southeast Asia's top phone company, and local rival StarHub Ltd., said customers were suffering slow access to Internet pages.
But SingTel said traffic was being diverted and repair work was in progress, adding: "Our submarine cables linking to Europe and the U.S. are not affected."

This is very relevant to me as I am having trouble keeping in contact with my parents in Malaysia, anyone else affected by this as badly as I am?

[jonc2006]

is it just me or all these natural disasters getting worse as time goes by? just in last and this year alone we have seen a rise in really bad-ass occurances, not just earthquakes either.

[industrian]

Originally Posted by jonc2006

is it just me or all these natural disasters getting worse as time goes by? just in last and this year alone we have seen a rise in really bad-ass occurances, not just earthquakes either.

To answer your question, yes. Dumfries had an earthquake for f**ks sake!! I thought it was impossible for Scotland to have earthquakes (due to us being not located near any faults or anything) but I guess I was proven wrong.

Then again, a 3.5 fares little in comparison to the big ones that hit Asia. I hope your relatives are doing ok, Player-X.

[shafeen]

internet lines closed here for a day.....the service provider say they come via taiwan but its all fine now hope ur family is allright player x

also natural disaster have a particular order its like an repeating activity.

eg the earthquake that caused tsunamis 2 years before occur once every 500-600 years not in the same fault line but on a diffrent part of that pacific fault line .so i guess its normal but also they could be more frequent due to global warming and other things..

also i heard in some news that some scientist have proved that the attraction of moon causes earthquakes? is it true??

[Player-X]

The only thing anyone in Malaysia would notice from that earthquake is a slow internet connection.
The only problem with communications is bad VOIP quality, normal chatting still works.

[shafeen]

i have a cheap internet connection for rs 400>>~12$<< per a month so a disconnection for one day wont bother me

[cel123]

yep some ISPs and websites in my country are down because of this....
and i cant resume my hentai downloads