Flooding Impact

This event is still active, scroll down for latest updates.

Summary of events

Flooding between Timaru and Ashburton knocked out both primary and backup fibre connections. A number providers were affected. This included mobile networks and calling was limited. As at 09:08am Sunday morning services had been restored. We are continuing to monitor the situation.

Event Background and Updates

Approximately 8:30pm on Saturday evening communications between Dunedin and Christchurch went down. Mobile services went to Emergency Calls only, and Text Services disappeared. The cause was loss of both primary (SH1) and alternate (SH72) fibre links. This was the result of severe flood damage. Below is a map showing the fibre pathways.

While repair work was already underway in many areas, due to slips and flooding, technicians were not allowed to access some areas due to the current state of emergency. This complicated getting repairs in place.

Just after 9:00am Sunday morning some broken fibre was sufficiently repaired to get service running. Given the nature of the event repairs will be ongoing. We will keep this page up to date as more information is available. 

As part of any outage event, we will review response and see where any improvements can be made. What worked? What didn't? What improvements can be made? We have a couple of thoughts already, so expect some notices in the coming weeks.

Sunday 11:30am  Services remain settled and operational. We are awaiting further updates on repair work on damaged fibre.
Sunday 4:30pm  Services remain up and running. Thunderstorms through Otago have presented more heavy weather. IDC is fully operational.
Monday 8:00am  All services running. This page updated with map added.
Tuesday 9:45am  Everything is continuing to operate. Service teams continue to work on permanent repairs as flooding recedes and safe access is possible.