Chinese domain owners lost about 10,000 domain names, when a 7.1 earthquake struck the coast of Taiwan on December 26. The quake cut undersea cables and severed international telecommunications lines

January 5, 2007 – (TopHosts News Brief) – According to recent reports, a December 26th earthquake near Taiwan caused close to 10,000 Chinese website operators to lose their .com Internet addresses, because of telecom problems.

Major international telecommunications lines were severed by the quake, causing thousands of .com domain to vanish from world registries. Disruptions to overseas Web connections by the quake also prevented Chinese users from accessing the overseas registries to re-register the names.

The undersea earthquake damaged cables carrying most of the region’s telecom traffic, which caused widespread communications disruptions affecting Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and elsewhere.

According to the Beijing Times, although underlying websites were unaffected, more than 9,000 domain-holders lost use of their .com addresses, and the number was expected to grow as the Internet disruptions continue.

Telecommunications firms sent repair ships to the waters off southern Taiwan, to repair the damage but have said connections might not be fully restored for weeks.