After early optimism, damages appear greater than first thought. Timing for repairs remains uncertain. Internet links are worst hit but banks and financial markets are able to operate.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Telecommunications between the United States, Europe, Taiwan, Hong Kong and continental Asia are still disrupted after an earthquake damaged undersea cables linking the Asian mainland to the rest of the world. The financial sector and trading houses are still affected, but the situation varies from country to country and institution to institution.
On the Chinese mainland, big banks were largely unaffected because they rely on untouched cables or satellite. But customers in North America, Australia and Europe have difficulty in communicating with Asia.
In China, internet access to all overseas websites ending in .com was severed. Internet surfers could not connect to websites run by Bloomberg, Reuters and other financial information providers and some wire service subscribers could not get terminal access on the mainland. banks with headquarters outside of China were less affected .
There was major damage in Taiwan whose communications with much of East Asia and parts of the US were cut.
“The damaged cables include China-US, APCN, Sea-Me-We3 and APCN2, meaning internet and telecom services between Taiwan and other Asian areas as well as the US would be disrupted,” said Lin Jen-hung, vice-president of Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest operator.
Voice calls to Hong Kong and South-East Asia were down to less than 2 per cent of normal capacity; those to Japan and the mainland were down to 10 per cent, and 15 per cent for Vietnam, Mr Lin noted. Voice calls made to the US, however, were being maintained at around 40 per cent. On digital data service, he said the traffic capacity was around 70 per cent.
Trading and clearing systems for stocks and futures were not affected at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, a spokeswoman for the exchange said. “The trading and information release of the stock and futures markets today are operating as usual,” she said, adding that the market capitalisation had reached a record high of HK$ 13 trillion, partly due to after Christmas reopening.
However, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority received complaints from some banks of some slower than usual response times for some internet banking services,
“We are not having any disruption at present,” said Wayne Fu, of Goldman Sachs Hong Kong.
There were few or no reports from airlines, pay-TV service providers or major websites of any failures, except for disruptions to e-mail and internet access, which will get back to normal once undersea cables as repaired.
The most affected were overseas customers from North America, Singapore and Australia, who were not able to access the trading house's website to view trading information, said George Lau Chor-yuen, spokesman for the Tai Fook Securities Group. Trading did take place by phone, not internet.
In Hong Kong, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority announced that they still had no figures on the extent of damage.
Neither China Telecom nor China Network Communications would say when connections would return to normal. (PB)
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