Unknown persons went to great lengths early yesterday morning to sever a 400-pair telephone cable at Riverview, Ruimveldt causing a disruption in service to residents and businesses in Alexander Village and sections of Industrial Site.

Up to late yesterday, service had not been restored and a GT&T official told Stabroek News that work is being done to repair the cable.

This is the fifth act of vandalism on GT&T cables in the last week and the only instance where pieces of the cable were not stolen.

Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday afternoon, Public Relations Officer Allison Parker said the severed cable disrupted service to 400 persons inclusive of businesses such as Banks DIH and DIDCO. She said the cable is located in front of the CCS Company and is above ground.

According to Parker, persons started calling in and it was only when technicians arrived in the area that the severed cable was discovered. She said this was some time after 8 am adding that the vandalism had to have occurred during the wee hours.

Parker informed this newspaper that last Friday a cable in the Charlestown area was severed and stolen. The following day, she said, technicians started fixing it and left it partially completed. When they turned up the next day, the cable that had been replaced was gone. She explained that apparently the culprits climbed onto containers nearby, to get to the cables.

Vandals also struck at the corner of Lombard and Princes streets causing a disruption of telephone service to the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security as well as to several homes and businesses.

Parker stressed that these incidents are affecting the company greatly, since technicians have to leave their scheduled work to go and fix severed cables and GT&T has to find millions of dollars to replace the cables.

Customers and businesses too, she said, are greatly inconvenienced by these acts of vandalism.

Parker pleaded with members of the public to call the 0908 hotline to reports acts of vandalism and stressed that those reports would be treated with confidentiality.

She expressed the hope that persons would be more vigilant.