Rush-Hour Power Cut Causes Major Disruption In London And The South East

A rush-hour power cut has caused major disruption on rail and Tube services in London and the South East.

Power returned to the system at about 1900 BST and the rail and tube network took several hours before most services resumed normal operations.

Network Rail said about 1,800 trains were affected by the power cut, caused by a fault with the National Grid.

Train company Connex reported the power went out between London and Ashford, in Kent. South London was hardest hit and Transport for London said 60% of the Tube network was affected.

Buses quickly became extremely busy and lines of people waiting for taxis grew as commuters abandoned packed Tube platforms.

London Fire Brigade took 400 calls and say they rescued about 100 people who were stuck in lifts.

The National Grid is investigating the cause of the fault but spokesman Sean Regan said any loss of power supply was “an unusual occurrence. There was a fault in the 275,000 volt system affecting a ring around London, which occurred at 1826 BST. Power to the distribution network in London was restored at 1900 BST. Obviously it is going to take the regional distribution network some time to restore supplies to the end users of their system. Hopefully it shouldn’t be long now.”

Were you affected by this major power cut?

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