A group of beavers is being blamed for causing a town in British Columbia to lose its internet, phone, and cable TV service this past weekend by chewing through the fibers and using them to build a dam.
Internet and cable service provider Telus told E.W. Scripps that the situation was a “very rare and uniquely Canadian disruption.”
The outage occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, which is a town with about 2,000 people total, CBS News reported.
The incident happened around 4 a.m. local time on Saturday, when workers found that the fiber optic cables had been chewed through "at multiple points, causing extensive damage."
“Our team located a nearby dam, and it appears the beavers dug underground alongside the creek to reach our cable, which is buried about three feet underground and protected by a 4.5-inch thick conduit," the company said in a statement. "The beavers first chewed through the conduit before chewing through the cable in multiple locations."
It took workers until 3:30 p.m. PT on Sunday to fully restore service to the town.
About 900 Internet customers and 60 TV customers were affected by the disruption, the company said.
