Posted on 01/17/2022 7:16:20 PM PST by texas booster
On Saturday, the volcano at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted, sending ash plumes 30 kilometres into the atmosphere, kicking off a tsunami in Tonga that reached as far away as Alaska, and destroying a volcanic cone that connected the uninhabited islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai.
The volcano is around 65 kilometres northwest of Tongan capital, Nuku’alofa, with experts saying it was one of the most powerful eruptions since the 1990s.
“The sea level gauge at Nuku’alofa, Tonga, recorded a tsunami wave of 1.19 metres before it stopped reporting,” Dr Hannah Power of the University of Newcastle said.
“Waves of over a metre were also observed in Vanuatu and Norfolk Island, Australia, and as far afield as Chile. Waves of over 50 centimetres were measured in several locations in New South Wales, Queensland, Fiji, the Cook Islands, New Caledonia, and New Zealand. Across the Pacific, tsunami waves were observed along both the North and South American coastlines and in Japan.
“Before communications were lost, video reports showed significant tsunami wave flooding and inundation occurring in Tonga which has caused damage to roads, buildings, and infrastructure such as seawalls. Flooding and localised inundation have been reported in Fiji, Chile, Ecuador, and the USA.”
As part of the damage, Tonga’s subsea cable connectivity to the outside world was also cut.
“TCL staff and all the stations are fine (no damage) except the cables, both have a fault,” Tonga Cable Limited said.
“The fault lies about 37km from Nuku’alofa for the international one and about 47km from Nuku’alofa for the domestic one.”
The company added the information required for the repair was gathered, and preparations to send a repair ship would begin as soon as clearance was granted, particularly as the eruption was close by the repair site.
Southern Cross Cables said the Tonga Cable went into single end feed mode, which meant it was being powered from its landing site in Fiji, but not from the Tongan side.
“This may have been due to failure of the Tonga power source, and so initially it was unclear whether the cable had failed/broken or whether it was a failure of the power equipment,” Southern Cross said.
“TCL are currently liaising with Subcom (South Pacific cable ship maintenance authority) with regards to arranging for the repair.”
The 827 kilometres submarine cable between Tonga and Fiji connects to the Southern Cross Cable. It went live in August 2013, and was funded jointly by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
Digicel, which operates a mobile network in the nation, said its service was impacted by the tsunami hitting Tonga’s main island, Tongatapu.
“Currently all communication to the outside world in Tonga is affected due to damage on the Tonga Cable Limited submarine cable, as a result of the volcanic eruption in Hunga Ha’apai Island,” Digicel said.
“CEO of Digicel Tonga, Anthony Seuseu and his team are working with local authorities to resolve the damage caused as a matter of urgency. We are working on getting our satellite link connectivity and this will be available to limited customers in essential services and government.”
Digicel added its domestic mobile towers were “in operation” across Tongatapu.
In 2019 after the Tonga cable suffered a pair of cuts and a 12-day outage, the nation signed a 15-year deal with Kacific for satellite connectivity.
Kacific has yet to respond to a request for comment, but the NZ Herald is reporting that dust and ash clouds are making satellite service intermittent, and the repair ship is currently in Papua New Guinea.
I am gonna guess that it will take more than two weeks to repairs those cables.
Looks like a 100 Mbps satellite uplink will do for now.
Calling Elon Musk.
His Skylink satellits system ought to be used.
A 6 foot tsunami is bad news. I bet most of the island is less than 20 feet over sea level.
Click on the link and select the "Southern Cross" subsea cable from the In Service tab on the left.
Goes from Australia and New Zealand to Pacific City OR and San Luis Obispo CA.
Southern Cross Cables has announced a "major capacity commitment" from Fijian telecommunications provider Fintel, along with agreements signed by Tokelau telco Teletok and Kiribati government-owned enterprise BwebwerikiNET.
According to Southern Cross Cables, the $350 million NEXT submarine cable system will provide the lowest latency and fastest connectivity from Fiji, Tokelau, and Kiribati to Australia and the US.
60 Tbps is slightly more than what I used to provision. This third cable was completed in 2019.
Maybe now I'll be able to play Solitaire remotely??
The Russians cut the cables to Tonga!
Thanks for the update.
I haven’t seen anything about this on MSM.
It must be spectacularly beautiful there when it’s not blowing up, or else why would you stay? Free coconuts?
Kinda funny, except that the folks in Norway and Svalbard are not quite laughing at the moment.
Redundancy requires routing service from two different directions.
I deal with underground telecommunications services. It is amazing how few companies in my area utilize redundant access. And how few of the communication facilities managers have any clue where their communication services come from.
Pointing out that things happen to cables at crazy depths. And it’s no small thing that get a submersible to that kind of depth. Norway was probably a natural event.
Tonga is not that pretty
I was there because it was a stop on an island hopping flight. I tried to get to as many of the ww2 battle sites as possible when I lived on Guam. Tonga was not fought over but, I stopped there on my way to either Chuk (Truk) or Guadal Canal. I’ve forgotten which trip and lost the records when a computer died.
It is amazing how few companies in my area utilize redundant access.
When the internet was first getting started, here in Minnesota, it began with a line running from Chicago to the University of Minnesota. Redundancy was, of course, one of the design concerns, so another line was run through the Dakotas to Seattle. Then one to Ames, Iowa, then out to Portland, etc.
But they all ran into the University of Minnesota.
As businesses, and particularly the banks and insurance companies, began to rely upon the internet, some of them understood the importance of redundancy, and insisted upon completely independent, redundant cables connecting them to the internet.
But they all ran into the University of Minnesota.
And most importantly, every single one of those independent redundant cables ran through the same PVC conduit running under the 14th Street railroad bridge in Dinkeytown.
And when a couple of homeless people, living under the bridge, lit a fire one January night, trying to keep warm, and managed to set the PVC on fire, every single one of those independent, redundant cables was destroyed.
One heck of a trip charge on that job!
Looks like Tonga has faster internet than Tijeras. Thank you New Mexico…
Had. They have no internet. Frankly, housing, food, clean fresh water, and electricity are their major issues now
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