Cable Outage

Damage to a fiber-optic cable serving China disrupted telephone and Internet service throughout Asia. Dave Johnson, a spokesman for AT&T; Network Services, said the failure occurred in an underwater cable between Chongming, China, and Pusan, South Korea. He said the cable is operated by an international consortium of about a dozen telecommunications companies, including AT&T.; Crews were heading to the suspected break point, about 230 miles off the coast of China, and repairs could take days, Johnson said. The outage affected some calls within the region, including Singapore and Hong Kong, but most calls from the United States were going through, he said. At WorldCom Inc., a spokeswoman said some Internet traffic had to be rerouted, causing some delays.