There are around 380 underwater cables in operation around the world, spanning a length of over 1.2 million kilometers (745,645 miles). In 2012, Hurricane Sandy slammed into the U.S. East Coast, knocking out several key exchanges where undersea cables linked North America and Europe. The entire network between North America and Europe was isolated for a number of hours. For us, the storm brought to light a potential challenge in the consolidation of transatlantic cables that all landed in New York and New Jersey. But most often when a cable goes down, nature is not to blame. There are about 200 such failures each year and the vast majority are caused by humans. "Two-thirds of cable failures are caused by accidental human activities, fishing nets and trawling and also ships' anchors," said an expert. "The next largest category is natural disaster, mother nature -- sometimes earthquakes but also underwater landslides." A magnitude-7.0 earthquake off the southwest coast of Taiwan in 2006, along with aftershocks, cut eight submarine cables which caused internet outages and disruption in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines.