(ORDO NEWS) — After the eruption of an underwater volcano near the Kingdom of Tonga, the islands were left without communication. The reason was called a broken cable – the only one that connected this territory with the rest of the world.
Now, according to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom Xiaosi Sovaleni, the authorities have restored access to the Internet and telephone communications. Apparently, Elon Musk‘s help is no longer needed.
What is known
I am very happy that we are online again,
” Sovaleni said.
- The head of Tonga Cables Limited, Samihuela Fonda, clarified that the repair team completed the connection of the broken cable on February 21.
- At first, the cable was thought to have broken in two places, but repair crews found that the damage was greater.
- There were probably four or five cuts, and many parts of the cable were dislodged.
- After the cable was replaced, the engineers began a 24-hour test to find faults.
- Later, the authorities stated that everything was working without interruption.
It was an important task, given the size of the damage, and we thought it would be fixed a week ago,
” says Sovaleni.
Access to equipment in other countries and long-awaited repairs were hampered by travel restrictions due to COVID-19, since immediately after the volcanic eruption, the inhabitants of the islands were “covered” by the Omicron strain . And volcanic activity prevented access to sections of the damaged cable.
But the work of reconnecting Tonga is not over yet. While the international cable to Tonga’s main island, Tongatapu, has been rehabilitated, the internal cables serving the outer island groups of Ha’apai and Vava’u are still in need of repair.
Recall that we previously wrote that Elon Musk asked the residents of Tonga if they needed to send equipment to them to access Starlink satellite Internet.
However, in response, he received only criticism, because, without access to the Internet, the victims of the eruption could not respond to the entrepreneur on Twitter. Later it became known that he did send 50 Starlink terminals.
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