Both cables to the Matsu Islands are cut within six days
The two submarine cables linking Taiwan's Matsu Islands to the main island were severed six days apart — the first on 2 February, attributed by Taiwanese authorities to a Chinese fishing vessel, the second on 8 February, attributed to a Chinese cargo ship. About 13,000 residents were left dependent on a backup microwave radio link with a capacity of roughly 2.2 Gbps against a normal demand of 8 to 9 Gbps; sending a text message could take fifteen to twenty minutes. Repairs took about fifty days, because a repair ship had to be found and scheduled for a job that was small, remote and commercially marginal.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Redundancy and restoration in the cable network · concept · not located
- Locating and repairing a cable fault · process · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Taiwan submarine cable incidents, 2023 and 2025, and the Hong Tai 58 judgment
Supports the 2023 Matsu cable cuts and their consequences — about 13,000 residents on a 2.2 Gbps microwave backup against 8–9 Gbps of normal demand, and roughly 50 days to repair — and the June 2025 conviction reported as the first of its kind. V55 verification basis: journalism retrieved in summary; no court document was consulted, and the attribution of the 2023 cuts to specific Chinese vessels is the Taiwanese authorities' account as reported.
Contemporary reporting including The Diplomat, Focus Taiwan, Taipei Times and Al Jazeera · Partly verified
Reporting of the February 2023 severing of both Matsu cables and the resulting 50-day repair, and of the Tainan District Court judgment of 12 June 2025 sentencing the captain of the Hong Tai 58 to three years for damaging the Taiwan–Penghu No. 3 cable
Recorded on Redundancy and restoration in the cable network
- A permanent Atlantic cable lands at Heart's Content
- East Asian connectivity degrades for weeks
- Eleven cable ships repair the Luzon Strait cables
- Both cables to the Matsu Islands are cut within six days
- Four cables fail off Côte d'Ivoire and thirteen countries lose connectivity
- SMW4 and IMEWE are cut near Jeddah
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- SMW4 and IMEWE are cut near Jeddah · 2025-09-06
- Four cables fail off Côte d'Ivoire and thirteen countries lose connectivity · 2024-03-14
- Eleven cable ships repair the Luzon Strait cables · 2007-01 – 2007-02
- East Asian connectivity degrades for weeks · 2006-12-26 – 2007-02
- A permanent Atlantic cable lands at Heart's Content · 1866