It's not exactly unexpected the last mile cable for a small village to have no redundancy. The redundancy is: use your cellular connection until they fix the cable.
The story says that cell service is also down.
The same cable was used for cell service...
Not sure why you’re downvoted - the article says “Telus warns that cellphone service in the area is likely to be spotty until the cable is repaired.” Maybe the cellular outage is from more people using it rather than damage?
It's a tiny town with only a few road routes in and out. Now go do the budget in dollars per km to build a fully redundant ring topology of fiber, via diverse routing, to the nearest mid size city. Lots of rural places are effectively a singlehomed stub, and you take your chances with a flash flood washing out a conduit alongside a road, trees falling on lines, beavers, etc.
It's a tiny, dying mining town over 50 miles away from the closest community. Having fibre is amazing as it is.