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An earthquake in southern Taiwan on Tuesday night damaged an undersea optic cable, causing serious disruptions to international phone lines and Internet connections in Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan and Southeast Asia.
The earthquake estimated at 7.1 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey shook the ocean floor 23 km southwest of Hengchun, southern Taiwan at 9:26 p.m. on Tuesday. At least six undersea optic cables connecting Korea, China and Japan, Hong Kong and Macau, and mainland China, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Europe were cut off, causing communications interruptions on Wednesday.
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Taipei residents walks in front of Chunghua Telecom's headquarters on Wednesday in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan's telephone communications with neighboring Asian countries were cut off Wednesday, hours after a powerful earthquake struck the southern part of the island, killing two. Chunghwa Telecom said an undersea cable off the southern coast had been damaged, interrupting communications with Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong. Communications with China were also cut off, because calls to the mainland from Taiwan are routed through Hong Kong./AP
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Taiwan was the worst affected. Chunghwa Telecom said 60 percent of the phone lines to the U.S. were cut off and 98 percent of communication linking Taiwan with Malaysia and Singapore suffered disruptions. The company forecast it will take two to three weeks for the nation to completely repair the damaged cables. The earthquake also disrupted 1,400 phone lines and 84 international phone lines of Japanese telecom firm NTT, making it impossible to call Southeast Asia from Japan.
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A customer at HSBC's branch in Apgujeong, Seoul reads a notice on the bank's out-of-service ATM on Wednesday afternoon after a powerful earthquake hit Taiwan and disrupted the bankĄ¯s overseas servers./Yonhap
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In China, the earthquake temporarily blocked access to major foreign websites and caused partial disruptions to phone calls to Taiwan and Hong Kong. Korea Telecom said a total of 9,985 communications lines were damaged including 9,871 ordinary call lines, 92 dedicated lines and 33 Internet lines as six undersea cables connecting Korea and Taiwan were damaged. Citibank Korea and domestic offices of HSBC and Bank of America, whose servers are located overseas, had to stop ATM and online banking services.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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