India, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain suffered internet problems when a cable was cut by a ships anchor. The ship was anchored off the coast of Egypt.
Instead of discussing the root cause of the ship cutting the anchor, lets think about the Safeguards that were in place to protect the cable.
So what keeps a ship from dropping an anchor and cutting a cable? Luck?
Any better ideas?
Use the comments field to provide your ideas.
Like
Maps, GPS and fines.
BTW: I thought that these cable routes were exclusion zones for ships to anchor and fish? According to the SAT3 cable awareness, “legal restrictions on fishing within one nautical mile of the submarine cable system. A person or vessel can be held liable for willfully or negligently damaging the cable. Furthermore, active cables may carry more than 10,000 volts of electricity.”
Thanks for your comment. I agree that rules exist and may apply.
The map and GPS will show you where the cable is IF the chart is current and the cable is marked. But they don’t stop someone from anchoring.
The law (fines/exclusion zones) only stop anchoring IF the person (Captain) obeys the law.
We call rules/standards “quasi-Safeguards” because they don’t prevent anything UNLESS the human (in this case the Captain) acts appropriately.
Thus we count on the proper actions of thousands of Captains to all be correct OR luck (they miss it when ignoring the rules).
By the way … Who is enforcing the rules off the coast of Egypt?
It is extremely difficult to police where a vessel may decide to drop anchor. Cables and pipe are being layed word wide at an incredible rate and not every vessel can expect to have every chart up to date. The usual requirement for laying cable or pipe in an area where anchors may be dropped is to trench it into the seabed and ensure adequate coverage of about a metre as a minimum. I feel the safeguard missing here is a barrier of adequate seabed coverage.
Dave
Thanks for the comment.
Good additional Safeguard.
Mark