Police declare major incident; BT says it’s sorry
Many people on the Island of Shetlands cannot use landlines, mobile phones or the internet after the undersea cable linking it to mainland Scotland was damaged. About 23,000 people live on the main island, which is about 130 miles north of the Scottish mainland.
The cable between Shetland and the even more remote Faroe Island was damaged last week. The distance between the two is about 208 miles.
Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and HM Coastguard are all on standby to provide emergency support, and the police said they would have a more visible presence than normal.
BT said in a statement that the outage is due to a break in a cable provided by a third-party and that, “Engineers are working to divert services via other routes as soon as possible and we’ll provide further updates.
“Our external subsea provider is also looking to restore their link quickly. Anyone who needs to call 999 should try their landline or their mobile, even if they don’t have signal from their own mobile provider. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
No information has been provided what caused the damage to the cables, but clearly better resilience needs to be on the map.