The cable, which carries the bulk of the island's Internet and other data traffic as well as international voice calls, was damaged Sunday when an Indian cargo vessel illegally dropped anchor, Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) said.

Some 800,000 telephone and Internet users were cut off but SLT said e-mail services were restored by Wednesday and it was trying to restore Internet services with ad hoc links through Singapore.

But the worldwide web was still only available at a few places in the capital at which private operators connected to the Internet backbone through their own international gateways.

"The testing and rectification of the fault became more complicated since the restoration operation has to be carried out without interrupting other (international Internet) traffic," SLT said in a statement.

To reconnect Sri Lanka, the entire South Asia, Middle East and Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE-III) cable, to which the damaged Sri Lankan cable is linked, would have to be brought down, it said.

However operators did not want to shut down traffic at a time when there was high usage because of the Olympic Games, it said.

The Indian ship that SLT said was responsible for the damage has been detained. It is believed to have dropped anchor in a prohibited zone and later dragged the submarine cable that links the SEA-ME-WE-III cable to Sri Lanka.

Internet users outside Sri Lanka who are also on the SEA-ME-WE-III cable are not affected.

An SLT spokesman said the company was unsure how long it would take to complete the repair given the Olympic constraints. A ship had located the damage at a point on the cable 10 kilometres (six miles) off Sri Lanka's western coast, he said.

Sri Lanka Telecom, which is 35 percent owned and fully managed by NTT of Japan, told the Colombo High Court Monday that it had suffered a loss of over five million dollars as a result of the damage to the cable.

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