Hong Kong Experienced Brief Connectivity Disruption on August 13

Hong Kong experienced a brief but sharp degradation in internet connectivity on Thursday, August 13, 2026. The disruption occurred between 10:05 and 10:12 UTC, with a primary impact observed on backscatter measurements, a proxy for aggregate network traffic. The event registered a severity score of 535.

Technical Details

The merit-nt signal, which measures backscatter to infer overall connectivity levels, recorded a drop of 78% from its peak value during the seven-minute event. The signal’s median value fell to 98.6 from a typical range in the hundreds. Other key network signals showed minimal deviation. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) control plane visibility and active probing for IPv4 reachability remained stable, showing drops of less than 1%.

The cause has not been publicly attributed. Connectivity was reported restored following the brief disruption.