Three major undersea cables, the FLAG FEA, SMW4, and SMW3 lines, have all been severed resulting in disruption of Internet traffic between Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. The cut, which occurred 130km off the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean, could take days to fix:


It's reported that some seismic activity was also recorded near Malta prior to the incident. Meanwhile India was said to be among the worst affected, losing up to 65% of its traffic with Europe.

More worrying perhaps is that the cuts leave just one line left and if that last one were to go then connectivity to a significant part of the world could be almost totally lost. Cue conspiracy theories about industrial espionage, terrorism, Russians and sea monsters from outer space (but not the ones from 'The Abyss' because they were nice, allegedly).