The Day the Internet Died...

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A single garden hose-sized cable connected Tonga to the world until a natural disaster sent the country back to 1880. And it could happen to anyone.
Emily Forlini
Senior Reporter
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Emily is an experienced reporter who covers cutting-edge tech, from AI and EVs to brain implants. She stays grounded by hiking and playing guitar.
November 18, 2025
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subsea cable illustration
(Credit:Zain bin Awais/PCMag Composite;imaginima/kajakiki/Neil Rabinowitz/FabrikaCr/Elena Pimukova/via Getty Images)

It all started with an underwater volcanic eruption. Debris shot into the air, gathering force as it cascaded down the volcano's flanks, plunged back into the ocean, and sliced Tonga's only international internet cable in two places, like cutting out the middle of a submarine sandwich.

Tonga, a tiny island nation east of Australia, immediately lost power and internet service. The eruption happened during the pandemic, in 2022, so flights were already suspended. Now, Tonga was officially alone, with no physical or digital connection to the outside world and no way to call for help. Underwater, the middle portion of the cable drifted out to sea, and the two severed ends flailed in the abyss.
A volcano off the coast of Tonga, though not the one that erupted and cut the cable, which is fully submerged
Another volcano off the coast of Tonga (Credit: Mike Korostelev / Moment via Getty Images)

"I initially thought Tonga would be thrown back, to say, the 1980s, before it had broadband internet," says Samanth Subramanian, who tells the full story in his new book, The Web Beneath the Waves. "But it was more like they went back to the 1880s, around the time they first laid a telegraph line to Tonga, and they would only receive occasional visitors by ship."

Thrown back in time, residents resorted to paper record-keeping for banking (no credit cards), traveled door-to-door to speak to each other, and grew their own food. Subramanian traveled to the island to write the book, providing a rare firsthand account, and the book covers similar incidents, such as China's politically motivated attacks on Taiwan's cables.
Subsea cable map as of Sept. 2025
Subsea cable map as of September 2025 (Credit:Teleogeography)
Seafloor Garden Hoses With Critical Roles

About the size of a garden hose, subsea cables snake along the seafloor, transporting 95% to 99% of internet traffic, depending on the estimate. They support nearly every aspect of our internet-connected world, making them increasingly critical. Meta, in February, announced plans to build the world's longest cable, focusing on piping its AI technologies around the world.

Inside each one is a thicket of wires, some about as thin as a strand of hair, in the case of fiber optic cables, says London-based Subramanian. The ends connect to landing stations on the shore, where large servers dole out the traffic to internet providers for nearly every internet activity—content streaming, video calls, stock exchange trades, social media, email, credit cards, medical records, and much more. Even many phone calls run through cables, not old-school phone lines.
Subsea cable on the shore
Subsea cable on the shore (Credit: IT International Telecom, Inc.)

The duality of how essential, yet vulnerable, they are is what drew Subramanian to immerse himself in the subject and write the book.

"Over the past 10 years, the internet has grown so central to our lives," Subramanian says. "If a cable were cut in 2002, it would be a lot easier to recover from it. But now, there are a lot of things in our lives that depend on it, and for the internet to be taken away would be a big disaster."

What happened in Tonga is just a tiny microcosm of what a cable apocalypse would entail. Here's a taste of Subramanian's account.

I can't understand the OP's OP...

I can't understand the OP's OP, but I do wish the internet would die. Then high streets would make a comeback and a sense of community would thrive again.
Well, keep Google and YouTube and stuff like that, but I'm talking about the things that are killing off the community, like Amazon and eBay and banking apps. I hate it all. I'm like a person from the 1940s trapped inside a millennial's body.

I would also add X and 4chan to the list of websites that should be killed off.

Islands like Tonga connect to the world (internet, cloud, phone, etc) thru an underwater cable. Tonga's cable was severed. The Tongans went back to using pen & paper, walking to talk in person, & so on. A person named Subramanian visited & wrote a book about the situation. How would other islands handle losing all data connections to the outside? How would the response differ if it happened back in 2002 versus nowadays?