13/01/2009

Manchester Blackout Leaves Thousands Of Homes Without Power

Thousands of homes have been left without electricity after a power cut in central Manchester.

More than 36,000 homes are said to be without power in areas including Manchester city centre, Bury, Prestwich and Salford. Metrolink tram services and the Arndale Centre – a major shopping mall in the city centre – have also been affected.

A spokeswoman for United Utilities said: "We had a major failure around 10.40am from an overhead power line that feeds central Manchester, Bury, Prestwich and Salford.

"It's affecting 36,815 customers. We have engineers on site and we are working to get customers back on re-routing them through the network."

Hundreds of commuters have been hit by the failure, and Network Rail said trains were unable to travel in or out of the city’s Victoria station for 20 minutes, as signalling was affected.

A spokesman for the Greater Manchester Passengers Transport Executive (GMPTE) said tram services had stopped in their tracks.

He added that no trams were running in Manchester City Centre or on routes out to Salford Quays and Altrincham.

However, he said trams were running between Bury and Victoria, and between Salford Quays and Eccles.

Steve Cox, United Utilities electricity response manager, said: "We apologise to everyone affected by this fault. At this stage our priority has been to get power back on as quickly as possible.

"When we have completed repairs we will investigate what caused the fault."

(JM/BMcC)

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