Voice and data communication across Asia was severely disrupted on Wednesday after an earthquake off the southern coast of Taiwan damaged under-sea telephone cables linking Asian countries to each other and to the US.

Authorities and telecommunications companies in Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan said international fixed-line, data and mobile connections had been affected by Tuesday’s night’s quake, which had a magnitude of 6.7 and triggered a tsunami alert on the second anniversary of the devastation of 2004.