The cargo vessel "State of Nagaland" was seized Monday after Sri Lanka Telecom alleged it had dropped anchor in a prohibited area off the west coast on Sunday and damaged the main submarine fibre optic cable to the country.

"We were later told that there is no evidence to link this ship to the incident," said navy director of operations Jayantha Perera. "We don't know who was responsible for cutting the cable."

Sri Lanka Telecom said the damage, which cut services to some 800,000 telephone and Internet users, had cost it five million dollars.

Internet services were fully restored around noon Thursday, it said.

During the four-day interruption, access to the worldwide web was only available at a few places in the capital at which private operators connected to the Internet backbone through their own international gateways.

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