The internet is down a lot in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, and Ivory Coast.

On Thursday, it was reported that several nations, including South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso, were experiencing widespread power outages.

Both Liberia and South Africa have made significant progress in restoring their services since that time.

It was not immediately obvious what caused the cable outages, which resulted in the irritation of millions of people throughout the continent.

According to Cloudflare Radar, a company that offers statistics on internet connections, “There appears to be a pattern in the timing of the disruptions, impacting from the north to the south of Africa.”

According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which is in charge of regulating the telecommunications industry, the outage was brought on by damage to international underwater cables that can be found running around the coastline of West Africa.

According to Reuben Muoka, a spokesman for the National Communications Commission (NCC), “the cuts occurred somewhere in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.”

According to a retired specialist who spoke with the BBC, debris may sometimes cause underwater cables to become severed.

He concluded by saying: “You can also have undersea earth slides – sections of seabed can become unstable, sending huge amounts of mud down a canyon or gulley.”

“Where cables come ashore and are buried underground, they could be prone to accidental or intentional damage.”

Regardless of the reason for this, it has brought about significant challenges for those who make their income via the usage of the internet.

According to statements made by fashion designer Cheick Senou to the BBC on Friday from Abidjan, which is located in the Ivory Coast, “It has been impossible to communicate with my clients. In addition, I needed to organize a delivery through an online app.”

“I couldn’t do anything without the internet.”

According to Netblocks, a company that monitors cybersecurity and internet connection, the percentage of people in the Ivory Coast who had access to the internet was now at about 4% on Thursday morning.

According to Netblocks, Liberia had a decline to 17% at one time, while Benin went down to 14% and Ghana reached 25%.

Customers in South Africa were “experiencing intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures,” according to a statement released by Vodacom on Thursday.

There was also a problem with the MainOne cable system, which is responsible for providing service to Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Liberian government stated that there had been reports of internet disruptions beginning that morning.

In the great majority of the country, residents were unable to access the fundamental internet as well as social media platforms. Furthermore, it was stated that foreign bank transactions were impacted, while there was a restricted number of international voice conversations during this time.

The Liberian city of Monrovia was the location where Benjamin Garkpah made his statement to the BBC on Thursday.

According to Fatumata Barry, the reason her company reached a standstill was because she was unable to accept payments using mobile money.

An event that occurred in Ivory Coast and involved the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) undersea communications cable was cited as the source of the problem by the Liberia Telecommunications Authority.

Several interruptions to underwater cables were cited as the cause of the power outage in Ghana, according to the National Communications Authority (NCA).

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