Catastrophic Earthquake and Tsunami in Russia Leave Submarine Cables Unscathed
In the aftermath of a recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Russia, concerns have arisen over the potential impact on subsea cable networks in the Pacific region. While the event did not cause reported outages for communication facilities, the incident serves as a reminder of the risks posed by seismic activity to these critical infrastructure systems.
Physical damage to cables from seismic activity, such as underwater earthquakes, landslides, or associated tsunamis, can break or displace subsea cables, leading to severe disruptions or outages in internet and telecommunications traffic across affected regions. However, in the case of the recent earthquake, Rostelecom's subsea cable connecting Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky with Anadyr remained operational, despite its proximity to the earthquake's epicenter.
The high density of subsea cables in the Pacific provides some network resilience, as traffic can be rerouted via multiple paths and "availability zones" maintained by cloud providers to mitigate regional failures. For example, the use of multiple Availability Zones allows for traffic rerouting even if a specific area is affected by an earthquake, and no disruptions have been reported for cloud computing services like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Despite these measures, repair challenges due to the remoteness of subsea cables, complex permitting processes, and limited repair capacity can prolong outages for days or weeks. Researchers also explore using fiber optic subsea cables to study offshore seismic faults by analyzing cable signal perturbations from seismic waves, underlining the complex interaction between earthquakes and cable infrastructure.
While earthquakes are recognized natural risks that can disrupt subsea cable infrastructure, recent large-scale events have not yet resulted in critical cable failures. However, the biggest risk to subsea cables is earthquake-triggered submarine landslides that could potentially break cables. Major subsea cable networks, including Google's Topaz and Jupiter (part-owned by AWS and Meta), are present in the Pacific.
In the Pacific region, which is vulnerable to large-magnitude earthquakes and tsunamis, experts monitor subsea cables closely following major events. For example, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's east coast in July 2025 triggered tsunami warnings across the North Pacific, but subsea cables near the epicenter remained intact and operational without reported internet outages.
In conclusion, while earthquakes are recognized natural risks that can disrupt subsea cable infrastructure, especially in the seismic Pacific region, recent large-scale events have not yet resulted in critical cable failures. Redundancy and network design help mitigate impacts, but ongoing vigilance and advance cable monitoring remain essential given the economic and communications importance of these cables.
- The interaction between earthquakes and subsea cable infrastructure can be studied using fiber optic technology in environmental-science research.
- Earthquakes pose risks not only to traditional science fields like computing and technology, but also to the critical infrastructure of subsea cables, especially in regions like the Pacific with high seismic activity.
