HSBC Bank of Bermuda's internet banking services were back to normal yesterday after being inaccessible to some customers for much of Wednesday ? all because of an earthquake off the southern tip of Taiwan.

The 7.1-magnitude quake damaged underwater fibre optic cables and ravaged communications systems, not only in Asia, but also farther afield.

A Bank of Bermuda spokesperson said yesterday that HSBC data that had travelled down the damaged cables had been re-routed to solve the problem.

In yesterday's statement, the spokesperson said: "Bank of Bermuda's public website, Personal Internet Banking and Business Internet Banking services, were temporarily affected by Internet connectivity issues in Hong Kong yesterday.

"Customers may have experienced delays or connectivity problems when using these services yesterday. HSBCnet was not affected. These problems have since been resolved. The cause was due to a recent earthquake experienced in Taiwan, which caused damage to a major submarine cable."

The ruptured cables are almost 10,800 feet below sea level.