Thousands of homes and businesses in the Kaipara District remain offline after a digger severed a major fibre-optic cable supplying broadband to areas including Dargaville, Ruawai, Paparoa, and Maungaturoto.
The damaged cable, which contained both Spark and Chorus lines, led to widespread outages across multiple providers.
According to a report in state media, Chorus technicians are working through the night, and as of 6pm, one of the damaged cables had been repaired.
Spark has offered free mobile data to affected customers via its outage assist service. Over 2,000 customers have been impacted, with many businesses forced to close or switch to cash-only sales due to Eftpos failures.
A full restoration timeline has not yet been provided.
Image credit: Compare Fibre
