According to the media, which quoted a freshly released Post and Telecoms Ministry report, a regional administration had allowed the remains of Vietnam War copper cables to be collected from the seabed and sold as scrap metal.
However, local fishermen, in pursuit of windfalls, started to cut off portions of operating fiber-optic cables running between Vietnam and Thailand as well.
In some places, the media reports said, copper collection became so profitable that fishermen bought special cable-cutting equipment.
Police seized over 1,600 metric tons of new as well as old cables, and said those who "plundered" cables from Vietnam's only trunk communication line could be "imprisoned for life or subjected to capital punishment."
The authorities are now guarding the trunk line and planning enlightenment campaigns to teach people how to tell copper wires from fiber-optic cables. All cable collection has been officially suspended.
The repairs would take no less than three months, post officials said.
