Kerala: World’s Longest Undersea Cable Damaged During Repair Works

The undersea communication link that establishes a connection between South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE-3) has been accidentally damaged during repair work being carried out by the Kerala Water Authority at Kundannoor. This line is the world’s longest undersea cable. The SEA-ME-3’s junction box and one cable has been affected because of a pipeline leak.

Over 92 telecom companies from across the world form the key stakeholders in the venture. A VSNL officer has been quoted by The New Indian Express as saying, “The cable services remained disrupted for six-and-a-half hours. In the case of stakeholders, who do not have any backup, the Internet blackout was total while in most places the connectivity must have been very slow.”

The network starts from Germany, goes through Europe, Gulf and Asian countries like India up to Japan. The cable is a whopping 39,000 km long and contains 39 landing points. The line starts from Norden in Germany and ends at Okinawa in Japan. The two landing points in India are Mumbai and Kochi.

However, this isn’t the first time the cable has been damaged. Previously during the construction of a highway, the cable was cut at Kumbalam and Kannadikkadu. VSNL is in-charge of the cable in India and the body has appointed in-house experts to fix the problem within a night.