Power cut leaves City offices in the dark
Central London was hit by a major power cut on Monday that stretched across dozens of postcodes and left swathes of the City in darkness.
According UK Power Networks (UKPN), the body responsible for the upkeep of the electricity network, 33 postcodes were affected by the outage, including thousands of homes and major businesses in the Square Mile.
The body said the power cut was caused by the failure of an underground electricity cable in the affected area, which according to the UKPN website stretched from east London into the City. Photos on social media showed Liverpool Street station without any power, with shops unable to take payments and the departures board reduced to a black screen.
Electricity was restored to the area at 12:09pm, UKPN said.
Great Northern Rail was forced to close Essex Road station because the outage affected lighting on the stop’s platforms. In an update, the train line that feeds commuter towns like Cambridge and Peterborough told passengers told to travel via Old Street or Highbury and Islington rather than use the north London station. Transport for London, the operator of London’s public transport network, said the cut hit some traffic signals and CCTV cameras in Hackney, but that otherwise the bus and underground networks were unaffected by the outage.
The majority of the outages took place north east of the Square Mile but stretched into the City of London, leaving offices and businesses in the dark Buildings between Aldgate East and Liverpool were affected, as were homes in Hackney and Shoreditch.
The power cut is believed to be among the biggest unplanned outages in central London for several years. UKPN apologised for the loss of power, saying it received 56 calls from customers over the situation. “A fault occurred on an underground electricity cable in the local area,” it said.