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A “major incident” has been declared on the Shetland Isles as its power has been completely shut off from the rest of the UK. This is due to the south subsea cable linking the island to the mainland being cut. Shetland Police are now patrolling the area off the coast of Scotland as engineers scramble to fix a complete power outage. It has meant that the internet, computers and phones are all unusable. The incident has also raised suspicions following the suspected “sabotage” of Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines last month, in which blasts to the system forced gas to leak out into the Baltic Sea. It is still unclear as to what exactly has triggered this outage at the moment, officials say, but repairs are also being made to a second cable.
A BT Group spokesperson said: “Due to a break in a third-party subsea cable connecting Shetland with the Scottish mainland, some phone, broadband and mobile services are affected. Engineers are working to divert services via other routes as soon as possible and we’ll provide further updates. Our external subsea provider is also looking to restore their link quickly.
“Anyone who needs to call 999 should try their landline or their mobile, even if they don’t have signal from their own mobile provider. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
It comes after the cable between Faroe and Shetland was damaged and is scheduled to be repaired on Saturday, according to Faroese Telecom’s head of infrastructure Páll Vesturbú.
Speaking to BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Chief Inspector Jane Mackenzie said that while the most likely cause of the incident was accidental damage from a fishing vessel, but she warned that it is “very rare” for two cables to have sustained damage at the same time.
She said: “The damage is affecting most of telecom services to Shetland. There are some services still working but we will try to establish more services during the day if that’s possible. We expect it will be fishing vessels that damaged the cable but it is very rare that we have two problems at the same time.”
Police Scotland is now working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and HM Coastguard to discuss bringing additional emergency support to the island while engineers make the fix.
Chief Inspector Mackenzie added: “We’re still trying to work to establish the full extent of the problem – we know there are some telephone lines working, 999 lines are believed to be working and some mobile networks are still working.
“If that doesn’t work, you should flag down an emergency service vehicle that isn’t using their blue light or attend either a police station, hospital, fire or ambulance station to report the emergency.”
The UK was warned that its critical energy and internet infrastructure could fail as a result of “hybrid attacks”. This is despite Defence Secretary Ben Wallace making note of the “mysterious” damage to the Nord Stream pipelines, which he warned should be a reminder of how “fragile” the UK economy and infrastructure are in the face of “hybrid attacks”.
To counter the purported threat, Mr Wallace said the Ministry of Defence will send out two “specialist ships” to patrol and protect the UK’s subsea network as its “internet and energy are highly reliant on pipelines and cables”.
However, Brandon Weichert, a geopolitical analyst and former Congressional staff member, told Express.co.uk: “Two ships are not enough to defend the vast layers of cables. This is why since 2014, I’ve urged nations like Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and others to cooperatively invest in enhancing their naval capabilities to be able to better defend the local waters from obvious Russian aggression. But the upside with Britain is that their navy is highly capable and two ships are better than none.”
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He added:”London is fixated on trying to deploy their naval forces to faraway places like the Indo-Pacific and off the coast of Argentina to defend the Falklands, and these are understandable strategic goals, but London should fixate much more on the local waters near Britain and Europe until further notice and leave the farther afield areas to the Americans.
“France also, with its submarine fleet, could augment the British in these protective measures against Russian attempts to cut undersea cables.”
Liz Cookman, a Ukraine-based journalist, has claimed that the Shetland incident has caused “speculation” after the Nord Stream attacks. She tweeted: “A ‘major incident’ has occurred in the UK’s remote Shetland Isles causing some speculation after the Nordstream attacks. All communication lines have been cut. Police say they are “patrolling the area” but have not said what caused it yet.”
“London is fixated on trying to deploy their naval forces to faraway places like the Indo-Pacific and off the coast of Argentina to defend the Falklands, and these are understandable strategic goals, but London should fixate much more on the local waters near Britain and Europe until further notice and leave the farther afield areas to the Americans. France also, with its submarine fleet, could augment the British in these protective measures against Russian attempts to cut undersea cables.”
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