Severe damage to at least three subsea cables off the West Coast of Africa disrupted internet services in Nigeria, Ghana and 12 other countries in Africa.

The situation left many telecommunications subscribers and bank users stranded for hours as the disruption paralyzed digital transactions and internet communications.

According to one of the world’s leading financial news organisations, Bloomberg, the West Africa Cable System, MainOne and ACE sea cables — arteries for telecommunications data — were all affected on Thursday.

According to data from internet analysis firms including NetBlocks, Kentik and Cloudflare, the cut triggered outages and connectivity issues for mobile operators and internet service providers across the West African sub-region.

The cause of the cable faults has not yet been determined, but in a statement, telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria, explained that the network outage experienced by its subscribers was a “result of damage to international undersea cables across East & West Africa”.

“The repair process is ongoing to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Please look out for further updates,” the company said.