There are reports power has returned to most of Auckland’s eastern and central suburbs affected by today’s major outage.
nzherald.co.nz readers report power has returned in the suburbs of Meadowbank, Parnell, Orakei, Remuera, Newmarket, Greenlane, Three kings, Ellerslie and Penrose.
Auckland was hit by a major power outage around 1pm today, stretching from the suburb of Mt Wellington to inner city Newmarket.
Inspector Chris Tait said power to traffic lights is starting to come back on but there are already moderate flows on the Southern motorway between New Market and Penrose heading north.
But nzherald.co.nz readers say the lights were still out at the intersection of Mt Eden and Balmoral Road at 3pm.
Meanwhile at Greenlane Hospital some appointments have had to be cancelled.
Auckland District Health Board spokeswoman Hayley Callard said most out-patient clinics rely on computers and those have had to be re-scheduled.
She said critical services are still up and running because the hospital has its own generators.
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The cut happened after a substation in Penrose went down.
Transpower spokeswoman Adele Fitzpatrick said the power cut hit 74,000 homes and businesses.
She said one of the three transformers was out of action due to routine maintenance. The other two were handling the load until a malfunction in one of them that caused the third to trip.
Ms Fitzpatrick said the cause of the malfunction is not yet known and it was not clear when the power would be restored.
Earlier reader Adam Collins wrote that “the power is out from the street lights in Mt Wellington to Market Road lights”.
Fire communications shift commander Mau Barbara said firefighters have rescued four sets of people stuck in lifts as a result of the power cut.
He said two were in the Central Park complex in Penrose, another was in the Wella building in Ellerslie, while the fourth was on Newmarket’s Broadway.
Mr Barbara also said fire fighters have responded to 15 alarm activations, some of which were burglar alarms mistaken for fire alarms.
He said fire fighters were also called to power lines on fire in Parnell and a smoking transformer in Ellerslie.
Police confirmed traffic lights were out across east Auckland and have warned drivers to be careful.
“The areas reported are from Onehunga to Orakei including Balmoral and Greenlane,” said Inspector Kerry Watson.
He said when traffic lights are down, the give way to the right rule should be used until power is restored.
Traffic lights were also reported to be out in St Helliers, Kohimarama and Mission Bay.
Police said too many sets of traffic lights were out to arrange officers on points duty.
At 1pm shops in Remuera closed doors and were in darkness.
Cameron Brewer, general manager of the Newmarket Business Association, said the power meltdown was a disaster for local business owners.
“Businesses in Newmarket have been without power since just after 1pm,” Mr Brewer said.
“With the sales and fine weather there were a lot of people in Newmarket and this couldn’t come have come at worst time for local businesses.”
He said some shopowners had closed, others were milling around hoping the power would return.
Newstalk ZB reported Sylvia Park shopping mall in Mount Wellington has been evacuated.
Staff at the deLongi premises in Mt Wellington were being sent home because of the outage.
Source: NZ Herald
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