Who Repairs the Internet at the Bottom of the Ocean?

A cable breaks on the ocean floor. How do you find it, lift it through thousands of metres of water, and reconnect the tiny glass fibres inside? Discover who repairs undersea internet cables—and how a specialist cable ship turns a fault beneath the ocean into a working connection again. Follow the repair from tests at a cable landing station to recovery, fibre splicing, the final joint, and the cable’s return to the seabed. We also explore the August 2023 Congo Canyon landslide that damaged three major submarine cables, and why a repair can involve far more than replacing a broken section. Subscribe to Everyday Unseen for stories revealing how the world works out of sight. Visuals include illustrative reconstructions and simplified animations. Chapters: 00:00 A cable breaks beneath the ocean 00:41 How the internet crosses oceans 01:47 What damages undersea cables? 02:27 Why one break isn't a global blackout 03:04 The ships and crews that repair it 03:53 Finding the fault from land 05:00 Lifting a cable from the seabed 07:02 Joining the tiny optical fibres 08:07 The final splice and return to sea 08:39 The Congo Canyon landslide 09:27 Why repairs take time 10:00 When the connection returns Research information: ICPC: international connectivity, fault causes and network resilience. Its estimates attribute around 70–80% of telecommunications cable faults to accidental human activity. iscpc.org KIS-ORCA: locating faults, recovering cable ends, replacing damaged sections and completing the final splice. KIS-ORCA Orange Marine: the actual Congo Canyon landslide and repair operation used in the video. #UnderseaCables #HowTheInternetWorks #engineering #EverydayUnseen #Engineering #InternetInfrastructure #DeepSea