A power cable under the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia has suffered an outage, leaving millions on edge as authorities investigate possible sabotage. The 658-megawatt Estlink 2 interconnector stopped working on Christmas Day, with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo saying police are looking into a potential foreign ship involvement.
The incident is the latest in a series of disruptions to undersea cables and gas pipelines in the region since 2022. Estonia said it had enough spare capacity to meet power needs during the outage, but both countries remain on high alert for potential acts of sabotage. Authorities have been warning of increased threats to critical infrastructure following recent breaches of telecom cables and gas pipelines.
The investigation into yesterday’s incident follows previous incidents such as the damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline in Finland last year, which was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor. A similar breach occurred in September 2022 when underwater explosions damaged Nord Stream natural gas pipelines brought from Russia to Germany, with authorities terming it sabotage and launching criminal probes.
Source: https://news.sky.com/story/undersea-power-cable-suffers-outage-as-baltic-sea-countries-on-edge-over-series-of-disruptions-13279811