- Size 8.8 earthquakes beats the east coast of Russia
- The epicenter is near two local underwater cables which remain operational
- The Pacific Ocean is filled with other cables but they can be safe against disturbances
After the sixth largest earthquake in the recorded history struck from the eastern coast of Russia, experts have been quick to assure that critical underwater cables used for Internet and data transfer remain safe.
Tsunami warnings classified for magnitude 8.8 are now shared all over the northern Pacific area, including Japan and the west coast of America, with waves already arriving in Hawaii, and Japanese low-lying coastal cities are encouraged to evacuate.
So far, there have been no effects on critical infrastructure, with submarines cables left in tact.
The Russian earthquake did not predict internet breaks
So far, no power cuts of communication facilities, cloud computing services or chipmaking plants have been reported, like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud still function normally.
Russia’s Rostelecom has not reported on disturbances in its underwater cable connecting Petropavlovsk-Chatky with Anadyr, despite its location close to the earthquake.
The 10-point Polar Express Subsea cable, which is currently under construction that also connects Russian locations and also located near the episent of the earthquake, does not appear to have been disturbed, although the earthquake could cause delays to the project.
Although no other cables transit near the episent, the Pacific Ocean is filled with large underwater cable networks, including Google’s Topaz and Jupiter, partly owned by AWS and META.
Still, subsk cables are generally burials in trenches in the first few kilometers of offshore. When exposed on the seabed, they are deep enough not to be largely affected by tsunami water columns. The biggest risk is the earthquake-triggered submarine landslides that threaten to break cables, as seen when nine Asia staff cables cracked in the 2006 earthquake in the Taiwan earthquake in 2006.
Hypercalers also use more accessibility zones, which means that even if Russia’s earthquake had to affect an area, traffic could be redirected within hours.
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