Mar 15, 2011 10:15 GMT  ·  By

The major earthquake, its aftershocks and subsequent tsunamis are labeled as Japan's biggest crisis since the Second World War. The country is facing a large number of economical and social problems, as the earthquake has affected any number of areas.

While initially thought to have been mostly un-impacted, it now seems that many of Japan's undersea cables providing internet and phone services to the country have been affected with about half of all cables crossing the Pacific being damaged in some way.

Undersea cables are sensitive and many get damaged rather regularly. The companies running the cables, usually a coalition of telecommunication companies, have teams and equipment to detect and repair cuts and other damages on stand-by, however the scale of the problem now is raising new issues.

Data and voice services are heavily disrupted in Japan, though most of the problems come from the damage inland rather than the cut cables.

While a significant amount of capacity has been affected by the damaged cables, telcos have been able to find alternative and backup routes to provide service.

This means that access should not be cut off, only slowed down since the alternative routes are longer, adding latency, and may also be strained by the new bandwidth requirements.

Internet access has proved crucial for many as other communication means failed. Following the disaster, many in Japan turned to the web and social networking services, such as Twitter, Facebook and the local sites, to get in touch with loved ones.

Of course, Japan is facing worst problems than lack of internet access right now. Power outages are still common making internet access moot for many.

The danger of a nuclear disaster still looms as events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant precipitate and are not under control. Of course, the full extent of the damage from the earthquakes and the tsunamis is not known.