A power blackout brought chaos to New Zealand's Auckland city today, leaving thousands of houses and businesses without electricity, roads gridlocked, phone lines down and hospitals closed.
Strong winds from a cold front that began sweeping northwards yesterday had snapped a power line at the Otahuhu substation, the main supplier of power to the country's largest city from the south, Transpower spokesman Chris Roberts said.
An earth-wire at the substation had fallen across a 110kv feed, one of two main feeds into Auckland, Mr Roberts said, affecting about 230,000 customers.
About half of the region - including most of the south and central Auckland - were without power from just after 8.30am (9.30pm Sunday Irish time).
West Auckland and the North Shore were unaffected. Power was restored to the central business district at about 12.40pm (1.40am Irish time).
The Auckland City Council said power was being restored to the rest of the affected areas in stages, and all areas were expected to have power by 4.30pm (5.30am Irish time).
Mr Roberts said the blackout had affected "everything without back-up power".
It halted trains on the suburban commuter rail network while about 300 sets of traffic lights also failed. Some central city businesses were evacuated, the New Zealand Press Association reported.