Internet users in Pakistan are expected to face internet disruption in the coming days, reports Kalbe Ali for Dawn. The internet services in the country were disrupted due to flood relief work in Sindh.

Minister of Information and Telecommunications Syed Aminul Haque said that initial reports of previous internet outages that happened this month indicated that the situation was severe and that more such incidents could be expected in the near future.

“Due to extensive flooding, most of the pathways of underground cables have been submerged, as relief workers or locals were trying to divert flood water by digging trenches on roads and footpaths.”

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“The ministry has directed PTCL to declare an emergency so that repair work could be initiated when any such incident is reported in the system, while the PTA is constantly monitoring the quality of service,” the minister added.

According to a technical report submitted on Wednesday by Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom, the repeated internet outages were caused primarily by flood relief efforts in the Sukkur division, where fibre-optic cables were damaged by the use of heavy machinery used to drain out flood water in Sindh.

Read more- Here’s why the internet was down in Pakistan last night

The internet services in Pakistan suffered two major disruptions this month on August 19 and August 22.