Chorus has revealed the scale of the devastation its facing with the fibre cables that deliver landline service to the East Coast - and it says at this stage it can’t offer an estimated time for repairs.

Limited broadband and mobile service is being progressively restored to the region, however, as telcos fly in satellite uplinks and mini, temporary cell sites.

“Gisborne’s telecommunications are normally enabled by two separate fibre cables to provide resilience,” Chorus spokesman Nathan Beaumont said.

“Unfortunately, both of the routes have suffered major cuts triggered by landslides.”

Both routes (north and south of Gisborne) were surveyed yesterday.

The north route has been identified as the most feasible option to implement a temporary overlay, Beaumont says.

“There are at least four breaks on this route that we know of, with one of them extremely challenging as in a deep gorge where the road is completely destroyed and will require more evaluation once on ground.”

Beaumont added, “We have resources at both ends of the route to start work on both ends at the same time. This includes two helicopters, separate crews of technicians to work on the two cuts, and enough fibre to bridge the gaps created by the landslides.”

An overlay should fix the surface cuts today, but at this point Chorus can’t say when it will be able to address the deep gorge cut.

Telcos have been working with NEMA to install satellite uplinks in Gisborne in their efforts to restore basic mobile and broadband service as debilitating outages continue for thousands. Vodafone CEO Jason Paris also posted that a temporary cell site had been installed at Gisborne airport.

The first uplinks went live on Wednesday, Telecommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen said.

The limited satellite service will act as a stand-in for the washed-away fibre optic cables that usually provide “backhaul” - that is, connect cell towers to the main networks.

Regular celltowers are also being progressively repaired.

“In the past 12 hours, 2degrees sites in Tolaga Bay, Hicks Bay and Tutara have been brought back on line, Brislen said this afternoon.

“Most of Coromandel is now operational again.”

In areas still covered by temporary fixes, Brislen said: “Satellite service won’t have the same capacity as fibre so communication will be limited to voice and text messaging and congestion will be an issue but it will help reconnect the region with the rest of the country.

Brislen said as well as working overlays to workaround cuts to the Taupo-Napier cable, Chorus was working on a longer-term replacement. Questions have been raised about the regions’ communications resilience in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.