Cut Chorus cable: Some Hawke's Bay customers without internet for more than 24 hours

More than 6000 people on the East Coast were without internet overnight on Wednesday. Photo / File

More than 6000 people across the East Coast were without internet services, some for more than 24 hours, when a Chorus cable was cut by roading contractors on Wednesday afternoon.

Chorus spokeswoman Holly Cushen confirmed a cable near Otane was cut about 1.25pm on Wednesday, causing more than 6000 Spark customers to lose broadband services.

She said services were restored to many customers overnight with the remainder restored by 2.15pm on Thursday.

"Part of the reason for the time it has taken is that technicians were stood down overnight as a result of health and safety concerns relating to working at night, technician fatigue and traffic management requirements for State Highway work."

Ellie Cross, a spokeswoman for Spark, said the outage had impacted customers across Gisborne, Napier, Carterton and Masterton.

While a "fairly large geographical area", this issue did not impact everyone in those areas.

She said this was because Spark has alternative fibre routes in place which have ensured that some customers remain online despite the fibre cut.

"We apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused by the outage."