Fire damage to a terrestrial network in Egypt affected services on the SEACOM undersea broadband cable, leading to complaints of internet disruptions in Africa yesterday.

The SEACOM fibre optic cable network connects South Africa and Eastern Africa with Europe and Southern Asia, stretching a distance of over 17,000km

And in statements yesterday, SEACOM said a fire that occurred 15 km outside of Alexandria in Egypt caused disruptions to its undersea network.

Repair teams were subsequently sent to the affected area, and late yesterday SEACOM said that it had “restored their services across Egypt.”

The magnitude of the fire damage, though, is unclear, but SEACOM estimated it took three hours to fix.

In an earlier statement yesterday, SEACOM also said the damage had affected its European routes.

However, South African internet service provider Mweb reported disruptions of its internet service owing to a SEACOM link failure.

Yesterday, Mweb said it had rerouted traffic as a result.

“We are running on alternative WACS capacity,” Mweb said in a statement posted to Facebook.

“Please note that we are not at full capacity and shaping on non-priority traffic will be in effect,” Mweb said.

But late yesterday at 20:51 South African time, Mweb said its SEACOM link was operating as per normal.

“Please be advised that both SEACOM links are back up and stable and our engineers are monitoring the situation,” said the company.