Internet connectivity in multiple countries in Asia and the Middle East has been affected by subsea cable outages in the Red Sea, according to internet monitoring group Netblocks.

Reuters reported on Monday that countries affected included India and Pakistan. Similar internet disruptions were also observed on Etisalat and Du networks in the United Arab Emirates.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the damage, but Netblocks identified failures affecting cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to the Reuters report.

Microsoft said at the weekend that its Microsoft Azure users may experience increased latency due to multiple undersea fibre cuts in the Red Sea.

Last year, South African internet service providers and their customers were hit by an abrupt disruption to internet access when the Seacom, AAE-1 and EIG undersea cables were damaged off the west coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. Houthi rebels sank the Rubymar, a Belize-flagged commercial ship loaded with 41 000t of fertiliser.

The crew abandoned the 172m ship after dropping one of its anchors, and the vessel drifted for almost two weeks through an area of the Red Sea that is densely populated with broadband cables.

Rerouted

The data running through the cables was soon rerouted and internet services returned to normal for customers. But Seacom faced the daunting challenge of entering the volatile Red Sea region to repair the damage.