By Katalina Siasau

Cable Ship Lodbrog found the northern end of Tonga's damaged fibre optic cable yesterday, 11 August, and is currently attempting to locate the southern end attached to Tongatapu. The repair of the submarine domestic telecommunications cable is hoped to be completed this Friday, 16 August.

Tonga's domestic cable was found to be completely cut at a point 96 km north of Tongatapu, believed to be the aftermath of an earthquake on 29 June. The cable connects Tongatapu with the Ha’apai and Vava’u groups.

Tonga Cable CEO Semisi Panuve told Matangi Tonga today, the damaged cable end towards the north was found around midday yesterday, 11 August.

"This was after searching on three attempts. The retrieved cable has been successfully tested towards Ha’apai and Vava’u and the cable has been capped off and was dropped back into the water with a buoy marker around 11:00pm last night," he said.

CS Lodbrog is currently trying to locate the other end of the cable, attached to Tongatapu.

Panuve said a first attempt was done around midnight last night, but without success.

73 km fault eliminated

Initially, Tonga Cable reported two faults on the cable located at 73 km and 96 km from Tongatapu. However, Panuve said their latest survey found only one fault.

“More likely, there was a glitch in our data, but the fault we located at 73 km from Tongatapu has disappeared."

Cable ship Lodbrog arrived into Tonga waters from Fiji on 7 August.

Upon arriving, Panuve said the ship conducted a bathymetry survey mapping of area of interest, and was completed last Friday, 9 August.

However, Tonga Cable has a limited spare cable for repair, so if the damaged cable is more than 50 kilometres, the repair will be postponed until they have sufficient cable.