These undersea cables are not generally lying about all willy-nilly on the bottom. They are generally deepy entrenched. It ain’t easy to cut one accidentally with a fishing net or an anchor.
Yep. I don’t know how much they actually ‘entrench’ them. It’s my understanding that they generally unspool most of this stuff and let it lie, but even still, fiber optic, let alone thick gauge power cables, and all the insulation involved, isn’t 6lb fishing line. It’s got a lot of tensile strength. To your point, you don’t accidentally break this stuff by raking over it.
They are not “deeply entrenched.” In shallower areas it is not uncommon for them to be severed by dragging anchors.
That area is not very deep. The deepest point between Finland and Estonia is only about 400 feet.
-PJ
They drug an anchor down the seabed and cut two different lines. Both times this ship happened to be there running slower than usual.