Apr 26, 2021 11:20:00

A situation occurred in which half of the villages could not use the Internet due to the disconnection of the line by the beaver

Tumbler Ridge , British Columbia, Canada, suffered a communication failure from April 24 to 25, 2021, and many households were temporarily unable to use the Internet. The telecommunications company announced that the failure was caused by Beaver's disconnection and commented that it was 'a Canadian event.'

Internet down in Tumbler Ridge, BC, after beaver chews through fibre cable | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/beaver-internet-down-tumbler-ridge-1.6001594

Beavers disrupt internet, cell phone and cable TV connection in Tumbler Ridge, BC by chewing through 4.5 inch thick tube | CTV News
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/beavers-chew-through-4-5-inch-thick-tube-disrupting-internet-service-for-900-bc-customers-1.5401615

Tumbler Ridge is a 1982-population village located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia. At such a tumbler ridge, from 4:00 am on April 24, about 900 homes and businesses became unable to use the Internet, and 60 cable services were cut off. In addition to fixed-line Internet services, mobile services for mobile phones are also unavailable or the connection has become unstable.

When Telus, a telecommunications carrier headquartered in British Columbia, dispatched staff to the site, it discovered that the internet line buried about 3 feet underground was cut off.

by Telus

There was a river and a beaver dam near the site, and the materials that protected the line cable were mixed in the tree branches that make up the dam, so Telus said, 'Beaver is the cause of the Internet disconnection. Because I grabbed it and cut it. '

by Telus

Liz Sauvé, a spokeswoman for Telus, said, 'Beaver grabbed our fiber-optic cables in multiple places and caused great damage. Our research team also found a dam near the site. Beaver seems to have dug underground along a stream to reach a cable buried about 3 feet underground and protected by a 4.5-inch thick wire tube. '

Restoration work was difficult because the surface of the earth was partially frozen at the site, but the Internet connection was restored at 15:00 on the 25th, about two days after the failure. Sauvé commented on the case, 'it feels like a very rare and Canadian event.'