Image copyright Getty Images Severed fiber optic cables disrupted internet access in parts of eastern Europe, Iran and Turkey on Thursday.
The issue, which lasted for about two hours, was caused by multiple fiber cables being physically cut at the same time , a highly unusual thing to happen.
Google said its services were among those unavailable in the region for about (minutes).
The company told internet service providers to connect to its other servers to “route around the problem”.
In a statement, the company blamed “multiple simultaneous fiber cuts”, which are very rare. BBC Monitoring confirmed that internet access in Bulgaria, Iran and Turkey had been disrupted for about two hours on Thursday morning.
) Sadjad Bonabi, a director at Iran’s Communications Infrastructure Company, said two cuts happene d at once, one between Iran and Bucharest and the other on a line to Munich.
This disrupted traffic on one of the major fiber cables in the region. But Mr Bonabi said traffic had been routed on to “healthy” connections in western and southern Iran.
No explanation for the cut cables has been offered.
Google told the BBC it would publish a full incident report in the coming weeks.
International internet cables have been mistakenly cut in the past.
(In 2019, a – year-old woman admitted damaging
. fiber-optic cables linking Georgia to Armenia
while scavenging for copper.
And in 2019,a fiber link in Orkney was accidentally cutduring the construction of a new hospital.
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