Power restored to Auckland after blackout

UPDATED 6.55pm Monday June 12, 2006
Power has been restored to most of Auckland after a blackout - thought to be caused by a storm sweeping the country - brought the city to a standstill.
More than 700,000 people were affected as power was cut to thousands of homes on top of the hundreds of businesses in the CBD forced to close.
Police described some of Auckland's intersections as "lunacy" as around 300 traffic lights went out just after 8.30am.
Power began to return to parts of the city from 12.40pm.
The city council activated its emergency operations centre and Auckland City Police mobilised its district emergency management plan, something not done since 1998's power crisis.
All but two of the city's police stations lost power and closed down.
A spokeswoman for power company Vector said the cause of the Auckland blackout was a fault on the Transpower network. She said: "An earth wire has snapped and fallen across the 110 kv feeder from the Otahuhu substation."