Internet alert: Pakistani users may face more outages due to floods

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani internet users may face outages in the days to come as the country deals with extreme flooding due to incessant rains, it emerged today in a technical report submitted to the IT ministry.

The ministry had sought a report from the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) after incidents of cable cuts recently.

According to Daily Dawn, PTCL in its report stated that internet outages during the past few days were actually caused by “flood relief efforts in the Sukkur division where fibre-optic cables were being damaged mainly by heavy machinery used to clear water in Sindh”.

The netizens experienced disruptions in services multiple times during the past several days as the rescue efforts kicked off amid heavy rains in Sindh.

Meanwhile, Minister for IT and Telecom Syed Aminul Haque, citing the technical report, warned that “the situation was serious and more such incidents could be expected in near future”.

The minister told the publication that due to extensive flooding, most of the pathways of underground cables have been submerged, as relief workers or locals were trying to divert floodwater by digging trenches on roads and footpaths.

Haque said that the PTCL has been asked to declare an emergency so that repair work could be initiated when any such incident is reported in the system.

“The PTA is constantly monitoring the quality of service,” the minister said.