I'm presently in Ghana, Africa. On Thursday, the Internet quite suddenly went completely down nationwide. Turns out that 4 undersea cables were cut off the Western coast of Africa. Oddly, the cables that run from Europe down the East Coast of Africa were also cut.
The official story is that some shift in the seabed caused these cables to sever. It seems odd to me, that a shift on the seabed could be so powerful as to cut a total of 7 cables multiple kilometers apart and on different continental shelves. Since we were not crushed by a massive Tsunami, I'm guessing that it wasn't a shift on the seabed.
Is this just some crazy coincidence or some kind of practice run?
Yes but they have been signalling a cyber catastrophe for the last 2 years so that an internet and communications shutdown is almost a certainty at some point. When people here say 10 days of darkness, this is usually what they are alluding too.