Red Sea Shipping Cuts Cables, Disrupts Middle East Internet

Post by : Abhinav Rana

Photo : X / ARIKA🇮🇳🚩

A Digital Crisis Sails In

When internet services lagged across parts of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, the culprit looked less like a cyberattack—and more like a commercial ship. Experts now say shipping activity in the Red Sea severed critical submarine cables, setting off a widespread internet outage that exposed the fragility of global digital arteries.

Anchor Drag Sparks Global Disruption

The Red Sea’s narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a choke point for dozens of undersea cables. Experts believe a ship dropped its anchor and dragged it across vital lines—the Asia-Europe SEA-ME-WE-4, IMEWE, FALCON GCX, and Europe-India Gateway systems—resulting in ruptures. While no country is completely offline, traffic disruptions ripple across continents, slowing access and cloud services for millions.

From Jeddah’s Depths to Digital Delays

The reported damage point lies near Jeddah, where these submarine cables lie especially shallow. The disruption has spiked latency in services reliant on these links—Canada’s Microsoft Azure warned of noticeable slowdowns, especially for users in India, Pakistan, and Gulf countries. Though cloud infrastructure rerouted traffic, the internet now feels like water trickling through narrower pipes.

Backbone Vulnerabilities Laid Bare

Subsea cables carry some 95% of global internet traffic, making them the unsung backbone of modern connectivity. The Red Sea outage reminds us how easily a single accident—or worse—can disrupt e-commerce, financial transactions, and emergency systems. It turns out our digital world rests on fragile threads beneath the ocean.

Cloud Delays Shake Regional Operations

Users of Microsoft’s Azure platform, as well as other cloud services, experienced intermittent delays. Rerouting measures held foundational functionality—but with increased latency. For enterprises and daily users alike, tasks like video conferencing, large file transfers, and real-time collaboration turned sluggish. The ripple effect was immediate.

Telecoms Test Their Resilience

Regional carriers like UAE’s Du and Etisalat, and Pakistan’s PTCL, scrambled to manage traffic flow. With some providers struggling to fill the lost capacity, slowdowns during peak hours became common. Customers noticed interruptions, and telecom engineers mobilized to patch alternative links—keeping services alive but far from seamless.

Maritime Mishaps and Infrastructure Risk

Anchor damage isn’t a rare occurrence—around 30% of cable issues stem from ship activity. But along strategically vital corridors like the Red Sea, the stakes skyrocket. Ships anchoring in shallow waters risk tangling fiber optics that link continents. The incident underscores a growing need for navigational safeguards and infrastructure awareness around seafaring routes.

Cloud Giants Dodge Full Collapse

Despite the disruption, global cloud providers averted catastrophe. Cloud platforms rerouted traffic through alternate corridors—at higher latency, but with continuity. Still, enterprise clients were reminded how dependent they are on seamless routing, and how easily that can fracture.

Past Outages Cast Long Shadows

This isn’t the first time Red Sea cables have faltered. Earlier incidents—like cuts to the AAE-1 or PEACE cables tied to Houthi activity or anchor drag—have disrupted traffic before. Each outage adds to the realization that digital resilience hinges on both redundancy and responsive repair capabilities.

Repair Efforts Face Delays and Logistics

Undersea cable repair isn’t as simple as patching a pipe. Special vessels must locate breaks, surface cables, splice them precisely, and protect the area—all while geopolitical tensions flare and seas churn. Repairs can stretch for days or even weeks, depending on weather and access, leaving users to weather the digital storm.

Security Concerns Shadow the Seabed

Amid conflicts involving Yemen’s Houthi rebels, cable security has become a pressing concern. While no group has claimed this incident, past warnings from Yemen’s government about potential attacks on digital infrastructure have amplified unease. Whether accidental or intentional, the result remains the same: a fragile digital lifeline severed.

The Human Toll of Slowed Connectivity

For businesses, students, and media professionals alike, the outage mattered. Trading apps lagged, educational platforms stuttered, and remote work paused mid-call. Banking delays and disrupted supply chain systems served as stark reminders that connectivity isn’t a luxury—it’s a lifeline.

Rethinking Digital Infrastructure Resilience

The outage spotlights the urgent need for strategic redundancy. Cable networks must diversify routes, governments should monitor shipping zones more vigilantly, and cloud providers must expand recovery paths. Digital resilience requires planning for worst-case scenarios—infrastructure that can self-heal, route around failures, and keep economies and lives moving.

Outage as Wake-Up Call and Opportunity

This incident may become both a warning and a pivot. It calls on policymakers, telecom leaders, and tech giants to treat digital infrastructure like critical national assets. It’s also an opportunity to invest in smarter mapping, accident prevention, and regional digital cooperation—so that a ship’s anchor doesn’t again sever global connectivity.

No Cable Too Deep to Break Us

The Red Sea internet outage isn’t just about cables—it’s about connected lives. A drag of an anchor leaves millions slowed down, cloud services strained, and entire regions reminded how delicate digital systems can be. But it also empowers us to build smarter, stronger networks. Because in today’s world, a submerged cable can remind us how high the stakes truly are—one cut, one delay, one world disconnected—but also one shared responsibility to stay connected.