How one woman and a garden spade cut off the internet for an entire COUNTRY

Hayastan Shakarian caused an internet blackout in three countries with her garden spade

A 75-year-old Georgian woman cut-off the internet in an entire country for more than 12 hours with only her garden spade.

 

Hayastan Shakarian sliced through an underground cable while digging to scavenge copper.

As she sliced into the fibre optic cable – the elderly woman single-handedly triggered a internet blackout for millions.

"I have no idea what the internet is," she would later claim.

 

Ms Shakarian was digging in the village of Ksani – some 37 miles outside the capital city of Tbilisi – when she left neighbouring Armenia without Internet access for twelve hours.

I have no idea what the internet is

Hayastan Shakarian, the Spade Hacker

The pensioner also caused major internet outages across Georgia and Azerbaijan.

In total, more than three-and-a-half million people were left sat in front of blank screens and error codes after the then-75-year-old sank her spade into the backbone cable.

Television reports showed footage of reporters working for a news agency in the capital Yerevan slumped in front of blank screens.

The elderly Georgian woman claimed she had "no idea what the internet is"

At the site where 75-year-old Hayastan Shakarian severed the internet connection to Armenia

Hayastan Shakarian was quickly dubbed the Spade Hacker for the devastating damage she caused.

"The woman was hunting for some copper lines that she was hoping she could to sell," a police spokesperson said at the time.

The cable damaged by the elderly Georgian runs through a slew of eastern European countries – connecting these countries to western Europe.

 

Dubbed the Fibre-Optic Backbone, the cable runs underground, primarily along the same routes as the railway tracks.

The line connects Georgia and Bulgaria, before crossing the Black Sea to the Georgian port of Poti, where it later forks into Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The firm that owns the cable, Georgian Railway Telecom, said the damage caused by the pensioner in 2011 affected 90 per cent of private and corporate internet users in neighbouring Armenia.

Although the company insisted the 380-mile fibre optic cable has robust protection, it was previously been damaged by another scrap metal scavenger back in 2009.