Beaver (archive image): »Unusual, but it happens from time to time«
Photo:
dpa
For more than eight hours on June 7th, internet, telephone and mobile connections were interrupted in the northwest of the Canadian province of British Columbia.
After days of investigation, the authorities have now identified the alleged culprit.
The suspect has unusual teeth, lives a secluded life and was not previously known to the police.
It's a beaver.
To what exactly, however, is unclear.
However, the evidence is overwhelming: an aspen fell on the power and fiber optic lines stretching between the towns of Topley and Houston, and characteristic bite marks on the trunk revealed the cause.
Only 21 customers felt the resulting power outage.
However, several nearby towns were affected by the outage: Burns Lake, Granisle, Haida Gwaii, the Hazeltons, Kitimat, Prince George, Prince Rupert, Smithers, Terrace, Thornhill, Houston, Topley, Telkwa, Fraser Lake and Vanderhoof.
Shops could no longer process card payments and could only accept cash.
Mobile communications were disrupted because some cell towers in the region are connected to what is currently the only fiber optic cable in the area.
The suspect also caused a fire by felling the aspen.
In British Columbia in the past, lines were often routed over masts and not buried, which is also due to the nature of the subsoil.
Bob Gammer of regional utility BC Hydro told Canadian broadcaster CTV News the destroyed lines were in a swampy area with high water levels, making access difficult.
It's unusual for a beaver to cause such damage, but it happens from time to time.
And – by Canadian standards – more precisely: "Well, I wouldn't be a rich man if I got five cents for it every time, but it happens."
In order to defuse this problem, among other things, the municipal provider CityWest is currently laying a second fiber optic line along the coast to Vancouver.
pbe
