BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific

Chinese cut off from internet

China Telecom has said that a major cable was cut at about 0800 local time (0000 GMT).

The cause of the damage is not yet known.

Neighbours affected

Taiwanese officials said users on the island were also unable to access international sites.

And Hong Kong and Singapore reported reduced speeds.

The damaged cable, which links Shanghai with the west coast of the United States, is just over a year old.

Reports suggest that damage could take anything from a week to three weeks to repair.

'Sparing no effort'

"We are sparing no effort to redirect traffic through other channels, but access speeds could be fairly slow", China Telecom spokeswoman Wang Yang said.

Other telecommunications cables link China to the rest of the world, but the damaged one carried most of the traffic.

Chinese internet users can still access domestic sites, but many Chinese businesses have their main servers overseas.

China Telecom, the state phone giant, plans a multi-billion-dollar stock listing in New York and Hong Kong this year.