A centralized crisis management team and a built-in resiliency to its network infrastructure enabled Cable & Wireless to help customers in Asia conduct business as usual without service and operational interruption
Exactly two years after an underwater tremor triggered a devastating tsunami in Asia, another massive earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale occurred 22.8 kilometers off the southern coast of Taiwan. Two strong aftershocks -charting 6.9 and 6.2 on the Richter scale - followed what was reported to be the strongest earthquake in 100 years to hit the Luzon Strait which links the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea.
The December 26 earthquake, which struck at 8:25 pm, caused not only loss of life, but damage to property -- in the worst hit town of Pingtung, Taiwan. Value of the damage was estimated at $1.23 million.
The full extent of the damage, however, was only apparent the next day when people returning to work after the Christmas holiday realized that email, Internet and phone connections had been knocked out. The news then spreadthat eight submarine cable systems snapped in 22 different places. (The damaged cables were APCN, APCN2, China-US, C2C, East Asia Cable (EAC), FLAG, Sea Me We 3 (SMW3), and RNAL.
Luzon Strait, the quake's epicenter, has the main concentration of fiber links interconnecting major business hubs in Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, China, Korea and Japan. These cables land in several locations in Taiwan, but it was those near Kaohsiung in the south which bore the brunt of the earthquake.
Business ground to a virtual halt as 60% of international transmission capacity across Asia Pacific was lost. The region's stock markets and foreign currency trading were immediately affected. Some international banks also temporarily suspended ATM and online banking services.
With overseas calls and access to US-based websites - primary source of Internet content - curtailed, Asia-based companies from different industry sectors - finance, shipping, logistics and manufacturing - found themselves stepping back to pre-Internet days conducting business by fax and mobile phones.