Papua New Guinea's government received financial support from China to fund the repair of the Kumul Submarine Cable Network (KSCN).

China provided $3.47 million in support, notes W Media, after the island was struck by an earthquake in September.

The earthquake led to severe damage to the KSCN, and disrupted telecoms and Internet services across the island. There was also damage to the PPC-1 cable which connects Sydney, Madang, and Guam.

The earthquake struck around 67km east of Kainantu and 80km northwest of Lae in the eastern PNG region, with state-owned DataCo confirming multiple breakages between 17km and 170km out of Madang.

Around a month after the 7.6-Richter scale earthquake hit on September 11, Papua New Guinea's DataCo secured and scheduled a repair vessel for mid-October to carry out repair work on multiple cable breakages in Madang.

Papua New Guinea's Minister for state enterprise William Duma praised China as always supporting the country with its 'important projects', while revealing that the country's enterprise sector and government services suffered for three months, between September to November, following the damage.

The KCSC domestic cable is 5,457km in length and connects regions across the island, and also into neighboring Indonesia, through Jayapura.