Cable ship the Leon Thevenin is running two days ahead of schedule with repairs to the Wacs and Sat-3/Wasc cable systems that were severed last month due to a suspected earthquake.
The cable breaks have resulted in slower international Internet traffic for some consumers and businesses in South Africa, though alternative routes along the east coast have helped mitigate against this.
The repairs are running ahead of schedule, despite rough weather conditions at sea, Telkom’s wholesale division, Openserve, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The chief of mission aboard the vessel has reported that in order to mitigate against unfavourable conditions, the sequence of the repair work has been changed from what was initially planned but the restoration process is continuing,” the company said.
“The good news is that the repair currently under way on one of the affected segments of the Wacs cable off the coast of Congo is nearing completion and, as it stands, the vessel is due to depart to its next repair destination on 6 February 2020.”
The crew had previously only expected to depart the Wacs repair site on 8 February.
Ghana next
“As per the report received, the vessel will travel on to offshore Ghana next, to attend to the repair of a section of the Sat-3/Wasc repair. It is anticipated that this restoration portion will be completed by 17 February,” Openserve said.
“This is subject to favourable external factors such as the weather conditions at sea. Thereafter, the ship will proceed to the next break location of the Sat-3/Wasc cable and again, if all goes well, the work is set to be completed around 25 February.” — (c) 2020 NewsCentral Media
