Tonga’s underground cable is predicted to need four weeks to repair

By: Ryan Oswald, Staff Reporter, The Pawprint

A key cable was destroyed in the island’s volcanic explosion, putting chances of communication out of the question. 

The explosion also caused a tsunami off the coast of the island which left 3 citizens dead. Teams are working on exporting vital materials to the island.

Tonga has been unable to come in contact with any other parts of the world. Scattered connections have been set up around the island, mostly with a few satellite phones being held by embassies.

However, this isn’t the first time Tonga has had their undersea cable damaged; it was damaged in 2019 during some bad weather, causing a blackout on the island for all of the 100,000 residents.

Officials have mentioned it would be an ideal situation to have more than one undersea cable in cases of this situation happening again.