"in as many weeks" and "as" meaning

Question

I've seen a sentence like this:

North Korea's internet appears to have been hit by a second wave of outages in as many weeks.

I wonder what does "in as many weeks" mean and specifically "as". Does sentence mean the same without "as"?

Answer 1

There have been two 'waves of outages' in two weeks. That is, there were 'as many' (the same number of) weeks as there were 'waves'.