Power was being restored throughout Northern Ireland last night after a fire at a main electricity sub-station outside Belfast left over 100,000 homes in Belfast and Down blacked out. Evening football matches were called off, train services disrupted and thousands of children sent home from school as a result of the fire.
Northern Ireland Electricity said it hoped to have full supply restored by midnight, but until then rotating cuts were being operated.
The fire broke out at a 270,000volt sub-station - one of eight across Northern Ireland - early yesterday. It immediately blacked out homes and caused morning traffic chaos in Belfast when traffic lights failed.
At its peak more than 60 firefighters tackled the blaze in the Castlereagh Hills. It took the fire service some 12 hours to extinguish the blaze which was fuelled by 20,000 gallons of oil leaking from a transformer onto the flames and sending a pall of oily black smoke into the sky.
NIE has started an investigation into the cause of the fire but there was nothing to suggest it was malicious.
Belfast City Airport in the east of the city was blacked out by the power cuts but managed to keep flights close to schedule by using extra emergency generators.