A Hong Kong-registered cargo ship called Xin Xin Tian 2 was sailing over the cable, Estlink 2, when the outage occurred.
An undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia called the Estlink 2 interconnector suffered an outage on Dec. 25, making it the third undersea cable to face complications in recent months.
The cable’s operator, Fingrid, said in a statement that the unplanned outage occurred at 10:26 GMT, reducing capacity from more than 1,000 megawatts to 358. The cable was operating at 658 megawatts when the accident occurred.
Fingrid’s operating manager, Arto Pahkin, said in a statement that an investigation was underway.
Meanwhile, Petteri Orpo, Finland’s prime minister, also said authorities in his nation were investigating the outage, clarifying that the incident did not affect Finland’s supply of electricity.
“Even at Christmas, the authorities are on standby to investigate the matter,” Orpo said in a post on X.
This outage occurred as authorities in the Baltic Sea remain on high alert for potential acts of sabotage after two telecommunication cables were cut in November, adding to a string of outages in recent years.
The Arelion cable, connecting Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland, was damaged on Nov. 17, and the C-Lion 1 cable, which connects Helsinki, Finland, to the German port of Rostock, was cut on Nov. 18 south of Oland Island, Sweden.
That damage coincided with the passing of a Chinese bulk carrier, the Yi Peng 3.
“No one believes that these cables were cut accidentally,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Nov. 19 before a meeting of European Union defense ministers. “I also don’t want to believe in versions that these were ship anchors that accidentally caused the damage.”
“So we have to state—without knowing in concrete terms who it came from—that this is a hybrid action. And we also have to assume—without already knowing it, obviously—that this is sabotage.”
The Yi Peng 3 was held within international waters for more than a month, departing for Port Said, Egypt, on Dec. 21. Some investigators were eventually allowed to board the ship. However, Swedish authorities criticized Chinese authorities for refusing to allow their chief investigator onboard to investigate the ship.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Finnish government for confirmation of this ship’s position and to inquire whether or not it was considering a possible act of sabotage at this point in the investigation.
Reuters and Owen Evans contributed to this report.
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