A sinking ship's anchor severs Red Sea cables
The bulk carrier Rubymar, struck by Houthi missiles on 18 February 2024 and drifting before it sank, is generally assessed to have dragged its anchor across the seabed and damaged several cables in the southern Red Sea; the systems reported affected were SEACOM, AAE-1, EIG and TGN. Regional traffic between Asia, the Gulf and Europe was disrupted, and repair was complicated by the security situation and by the permissions required to work in those waters. The general manager of the ICPC noted publicly that a dragged anchor is among the leading causes of cable damage — which is the point: the mechanism was entirely ordinary, and only the reason the anchor was down was not.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- The Red Sea cable corridor · maritime region · Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
- International Cable Protection Committee · organisation · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Red Sea cable damage, 2024 and 2025
Supports the 2024 and 2025 Red Sea incidents as described here: the cables reported affected, the assessed anchor-drag mechanism in 2024 with ICPC comment, the 05:45 UTC start of the September 2025 latency effects, and Microsoft's statement that traffic previously routed through the Middle East would see higher latency. V55 verification basis: contemporaneous journalism retrieved in summary, not primary incident reports. Cause attribution for the 2024 damage is an assessment, not a finding; the Houthi movement denied involvement in the 2025 cuts and no cause has been established here.
Contemporary reporting including Al Jazeera, CNBC, NBC News and Network World, with ICPC comment · Partly verified
Reporting of the February 2024 Rubymar-associated damage to SEACOM, AAE-1, EIG and TGN, and of the 6 September 2025 failures of SEA-ME-WE 4 and IMEWE near Jeddah, including the Microsoft Azure service status statements on latency
Recorded on The Red Sea cable corridor
- The Cable Damage Committee is established
- SEA-ME-WE 5 is ready for service
- A sinking ship's anchor severs Red Sea cables
- An international advisory body for cable resilience is created
- 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
- An international advisory body for cable resilience is created · 2024-11-29
- SEA-ME-WE 5 is ready for service · 2016-12-13
- The Cable Damage Committee is established · 1958-05-22