Skip to main content
Open this photo in gallery:

Bell is looking for answers after workers found a subsea cable, shown in this handout photo, had been cleanly severed on Dec. 24, 2024.HO/The Canadian Press

Bell Canada is looking for answers after a subsea fibre-optic cable connecting western Newfoundland to Nova Scotia was severed for the second time in the space of a year.

David Joice, the company’s networks director, says the cable was most recently cut on Dec. 24, almost a year after the first incident on Jan. 4, 2024.

He says the slice through the three-centimetre cable is clean, as if made by a specialized tool, and he believes the line was deliberately severed.

Joice says it is possible an anchor got ensnared in the line, which was roughly 30 metres below the surface, and it was cut to free a ship.

Nonetheless, Bell has contacted the RCMP about the incident, and Joice is asking vessel owners in the area not to cut any cables their anchors may drag up.

He says the cable has since been repaired and returned to the water, where remotely operated vehicles dug into the seabed to bury it much deeper.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe