Queensland town silenced by bush rat

A hungry bush rat cut communications to the north Queensland mining town of Mt Isa when it chewed through a fibre optic cable.

Telstra spokesman Anton James said yesterday that the town's population of 25,000 lost telephone links on Tuesday night when the rodent chewed through a major trunk line from Townsville.

He said Telstra technicians had difficulty locating the damaged spot, which was finally found at Nonda, a flyspeck on the map between Richmond and Cloncurry.

"We narrowed the damage down to within 500m using laser equipment, and from then it was a matter of searching carefully," Mr James said.

"When we found the damage it was obviously done by a rodent of some kind."