Islands of Tonga have internet again five weeks after volcanic eruption

The Tonga archipelago is once again connected to the internet. Five weeks ago, a sea cable was damaged during a volcanic eruption, which largely cut Tonga from the outside world until Tuesday.

The Australian ABC News writes that the sea cable that provides Tonga with internet and telephony has been repaired. This means that the ‘main islands’ Tongatapu and Eua are once again provided with internet. The cable is said to have been repaired on Monday, after which it was tested for possible defects for 24 hours. Providers Digicel and TCC confirm that the internet connection has been restored.

Tonga’s prime minister says he is ‘glad to have Tonga back online’. “We had some capacity via satellite, but nothing compared to what we have now with the cable reconnected,” the prime minister said. Now that the submarine cable has been repaired, work continues to restore the inland cable to smaller surrounding islands.

The sea cable that supplied Tonga with an internet connection was damaged in a volcanic eruption on January 15. The power of that eruption caused the cable to break in several places. The damage was worse than originally thought, the prime minister said. In total, about 80km of the 840km cable was damaged. The repairs took ten days longer than expected. The cable was damaged by a ship’s anchor in 2019. Then the archipelago was offline for two weeks.