BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- It might take weeks for Asia's Internet and phone traffic to return to normal while service has been partially restored.

    Ships were dispatched Thursday to repair the undersea cables that had been damaged in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck just off Taiwan's southern coast late Tuesday.

    "Four cable ships left Japan, Singapore and the Philippines today," Lin Jen-hung, vice president of Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom said Thursday at a news conference. "They are expected to arrive next Tuesday and start repairing the undersea

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cables. The repair will take about two weeks."

    Chunghwa said the quake and its aftershocks damaged four of the six undersea cables it owns, cutting off or slowing down the region's voice, data and Internet connections with India, Europe and the United States.

    The telecommunications service in neighboring areas was also affected because a huge amount of it is routed by the damaged submarine optical cables, which are generally owned by consortia of communications companies.

    According to Lin, the service disruptions would cause at least 150 million Taiwan dollars (4.5 million US dollars) in losses to his company.

    An executive at one Hong Kong daily newspaper described the event as a "technological tsunami" that will cost the city millions of U.S. dollars in lost business.

    Meanwhile, service was partially being restored as telecommunications companies rerouted traffic to alternate communications lanes.

    A spokesman with the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry said Thursday the government and telephone operators have initiated emergency plans to help ease the disruptions.

    Telephone operators in the Chinese mainland have partially restored telecommunications disrupted by the broken undersea cables off the Taiwan coast.

    China Telecom Corp. said it had "basically" restored all the international calls and services provided to its big corporate customers by 10 p.m. Thursday.

    China Netcom said two boats had started repairing the damaged lines and three others were on their way to help out. The firm expects international telecommunications to be restored "within days."

    In Singapore, thousands of home users and companies were cut off from the Internet Wednesday, and telecommunications officials advised Internet users to expect slow traffic for at least a few days.

    The country's two Internet-service providers, Singapore Telecommunications and StarHub, scrambled to restore service and reroute traffic.

    "This will allow for continued, albeit slower, Internet connectivity over the next few days," the Infocomm Development Authority said in a statement.

    (Agencies)

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