The fire was eventually brought under control by midday, but the damage caused widespread internet outages.
ISLAMABAD: Internet services in several Pakistani cities, including the federal capital Islamabad and Peshawar, were severely affected on Tuesday due to a fire in a fiber optic cable.
The fire near the Ninth Avenue Bridge in the I-9 sector of Islamabad caused major connectivity problems in Islamabad, Peshawar, Murree and Abbottabad.
According to initial investigation, a group of unknown persons set fire to the underground fiber optic cable.
The fire was eventually brought under control by midday, but the damage caused widespread internet outages.
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Officials are currently working to repair and maintain the damaged cable, which experts estimate will take several more hours to fully restore services.
As a result of this incident, banking, telecom and other sectors have also suffered a financial loss of crores of rupees. Fiber optics experts noted that this was the fourth or fifth such incident in recent months, highlighting a disturbing pattern of sabotage targeting the country’s digital infrastructure.
