Huge Power Cut In Southampton

23 September 2013, 11:13

Large parts of Southampton were left without power for hours last night (Sunday 22 September).

It was after a small fire at a Southern Electric sub-station. Problems were reported from about 10.15pm until the early hours, with lots of people taking to Twitter to talk about it.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue said:

"Four Firefighters from St Marys assisted the Electricity Board in dealing with a fire in an electrical sub station, by isolating power.

"Several 999 calls were received as a result, due to a large part of Southampton suffering power loss. These included lift rescues and Automatic Fire Alarms sounding. The initial 999 call to the sub station was received at 2250 and the stop message came in at 2344."

They say the fire was already out so no action was needed.

SSE, which owns Southern Electric, says there was a high-voltage cable fault at a sub-station in the Western Esplanade area and customers were isolated at 11.45pm for safety, for about 15 minutes.

They've thanked customers and apologised.

They've told us engineers are still on site on Monday, and they're still investigating.