By Linny Folau

Progress has been slow today, Monday, in the search for the Fiji end of Tonga's submarine telecommunications cable - suspected to be broken in several places. Bad weather and rough seas persist in the area.

The cable repair ship Reliance recovered the Tonga end of the international cable over the weekend, and secured it at 7:00am on Saturday.

“It has identified the break to be around 36km from our Sopu station,” CEO of Tonga Cable Ltd., James Panuve, told Matangi Tonga today.

They also recovered a 1.2km long piece of separated submarine cable yesterday.

“The priority is to restore international communications for Tongatapu. After that is completed, then they will work on the domestic cable.”

James said they had been looking for the Fiji side of the cable since 10:00am Saturday.

“Progress has been slow in the search for the Fiji end and is suspected to be broken in several places. The bad weather also is not helping as they are experiencing big swells and poor visibility out there,” he said.

The international cable lies about 44km south of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, which erupted violently on Jan. 15, causing tsunamis and shock waves and cutting Tonga's international and domestic communications. The domestic cable lies only 7-8 km east of the volcano.

The Tonga cut end was located at the co-ordinates LAT: S20 58.7854, LON: W175 20.9500. It had moved from the location where it was supposed to be.

James was not sure when the cable repair will be completed.

“Their original time frame was for Thursday Feb. 10 to fix the international cable. We won't know if that has changed until tomorrow morning,” he said.

Meanwhile, weather forecasters said a trough lies slow moving over Tonga, with associated cloudy, heavy occasional rain, strong gusty winds with thunderstorms, continuing on Wednesday. A strong wind warning and small craft advisory remains in force for all Tonga waters.

North to northeast winds, 15-20 knots, rising up to 25-30 knots at times.

Moderate to rough seas (up to 3 meters), and poor visibility in areas of heavy rain and thunderstorms.

See also:

ROV searches for Tonga's broken fibre optic cable - moved by tsunamis or shock waves [2]