900 Canadian customers experienced an Internet outage caused by beavers gnawing through a crucial fiber optic cable. The outage occurred in Tumbler Ridge, a municipality in British Columbia. The region, home to 2,000 people endured the outage for 36 hours. The determined rodents dug down alongside the creek, chewed through the 4.5″ conduit and then finally chewed through the cable at multiple points.
The service provider Telus said that the beavers were using materials from Telus equipment to construct their dam. Assessing the full extent of the damage was a challenging task, considering that the ground above was partially frozen — and the beavers did a number on the cable. Thankfully, Internet service was restored at 3:30 PM Pacific Time (PT).