Cloudflare Radar recorded 49 Internet disruptions worldwide during the third quarter of 2026, with government-directed shutdowns accounting for 19 incidents. Eighteen of those were scheduled shutdowns in Iraq during exam periods. Power outages caused 14 incidents, while natural disasters accounted for five, according to Cloudflare’s quarterly review of traffic to its customers.
Power failures affected networks in countries including Cuba, Honduras and Ukraine. Cuba experienced four power-related outages during the quarter, with traffic declines ranging from 18% to 59%. In Honduras, a failure at an interconnection facility on September 10 affected at least 11 major providers. The outage lasted about three hours, and national HTTP traffic fell by 63%.
In Sevastopol, Ukraine, a July 5 power outage caused an eight-hour disruption as HTTP traffic dropped by 98%. Drone strikes on energy infrastructure led to a further outage on August 12, lasting ten hours and reducing traffic by as much as 95%. Cloudflare also reported power-related incidents in Eswatini, Botswana, Tajikistan, Kenya, Saint Lucia, Georgia and Gabon.
Natural disasters damaged infrastructure and disrupted connectivity in several regions. In Guam, Super Typhoon Bavi caused widespread power outages and a multi-day recovery for Internet traffic. An earthquake in Japan affected desktop traffic, while mobile connectivity was largely unaffected. In Colombia, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake damaged fiber-optic infrastructure and was followed by a four-and-a-half-day disruption. Flash floods in Nepal caused a two-hour outage, with HTTP traffic falling by up to 18%.
Iraq’s exam-related shutdowns followed a schedule of 03:30 to 04:00 UTC and generally lasted between 15 and 90 minutes. Most occurred from August 26 to September 28, with three earlier incidents between July 1 and 8.
Conflict and political events also coincided with disruptions. In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a government-directed shutdown lasted ten days, with traffic falling to zero in the affected area and country-level HTTP traffic declining by up to 30%. In Russia’s Far East, damage to backbone fiber lines on September 19 disrupted connectivity in several regions. Rostelecom said it restored service using backup channels. Cloudflare noted that its data could not establish whether the cable damage was connected to nationwide elections held that day.
Not all disruptions were prolonged: 14 saw traffic return to typical levels in under an hour, and 16 recovered in less than three hours. Cloudflare’s review also included outages affecting individual networks in Guyana, Portugal, Haiti, Turkey and Iran.
Sources: Cloudflare Blog.