TRANSATLANTIC CABLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20905, 20 December 1929, Page 11

TRANSATLANTIC CABLES

DAMAGE BY EARTHQUAKE,

REPAIRS NEARLY COMPLETED,

(United Press Association.)

{By Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright.)

HALIFAX, December 18,

Tho cable ships have nearly completed the repairs to the transatlantic cables, which were broken by the earthquake last month. The ’quake area was at least 300 miles north and south and 100 miles east and west. One ship grappled across the old commercial company’s lines without finding a single trace of any line in all that area.

The cable is valued at £2OO per mile, and the loss to the cable companies is expected to reach an enormous sum. Deposits of hard clay on the grappling irons in place of the usual ooze on the ocean bottom led to the belief that a tremendous upheaval had buried many miles of the cable where it cannot be reached.

One interesting feature is the stimulation of business over the Pacific cable ■which arose from the transatlantic break. Thousands of messages from London to Canada and the United States were sent via the Eastern route, Sydney and Vancouver getting a very rapid and-satis-factory service over the long way round the world.