Sabotage
Submarine Cable
Svalbard fibre cable — human-caused seabed damage removes redundancy
7 January 2022
Norwegian Sea between Svalbard and mainland Norway
Map
73.5000, 12.0000
What happened
One of the two subsea fibre-optic links connecting Svalbard with mainland Norway failed in deep water. Space Norway said normal communications continued over the second cable but redundancy was lost. Police evidence indicated human activity caused the damage, yet the investigation was closed because there was insufficient evidence of a criminal act or responsible vessel. The event occurred in January 2022, not November 2021, and the record does not repeat unproven claims that Russian trawlers deliberately sabotaged it.
When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.
- Evidence
- Under investigation
- Confidence
- Unverified
- Infrastructure
- Submarine Cable
- Current temperature
- Loading…
- Latitude
- 73.5000°
- Longitude
- 12.0000°
Attribution
Responsibility disputed No perpetrator established
Police concluded human activity caused the damage but closed the criminal case for lack of evidence. Media scrutiny of a Russian trawler did not establish deliberate sabotage or state responsibility.