Power outage hits London

Thursday, 28 August 2003 12:00 AM

Large areas of London are tonight in darkness after the apparent failure of a National Grid circuit in the south of the city.

In scenes reminiscent of this month's large-scale blackouts across the north east of the USA, traffic lights failed and trains halted as commuters began to leave their offices for the evening rush hour.

Though power now appears to be coming back in a number of areas, officials state that the transport network is still severely affected.

Some London Underground stations have been evacuated while mainline train stations such as Waterloo and Victoria are also without power, as is a 30 mile stretch of track to the south of London.

Network Rail has stated that between 500 and 1000 trains are affected by the powercut and that many people are trapped in Underground trains. 60% of Tube services are affected by the power outage.

Speaking from his office in City Hall, London Mayor Ken Livingstone reassured the public that there was no sign that terrorism had caused the blackout.

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