A submarine internet cable maintenance ship Reliance arrived in Nuku’alofa, this evening, and berthed at the Queen Sālote Wharf, after sailing to Tonga from Samoa over the weekend.

‘Etuini Liava’a, the CEO of Tonga Cable Ltd, said that details of the extent of damage to the submarine cable, how long it will take to fix, and the cost for repair, and when the service will  likely be back to normal, will be made known once the actual damage to the cable is clearly identified.

They will start the marine investigation soon.

Meanwhile, efforts by local telecommunication networks, Tonga Telecommunication Corporation, Digicel Tonga and EziNET have managed to keep basic services connected to the rest of the world.

The Tongan public's access to Social Media has been filtered out in order to free up data for essential communications.