Hundreds cut off after underground cable problem

Hundreds of homes in Greater Manchester and on Merseyside have been left without power due to problems with an underground cable.

SP Electricity North West (ENW) said 289 properties in St Helens, 149 in Bury, 87 in Oldham and 28 in Rochdale had been affected.

It said the outage had been caused by "an unexpected incident" with an underground cable and stressed that it was not weather-related.

ENW said it had either sent or was preparing to send teams to all affected areas, with electricity supplies provisionally expected to be restored between 10:20 and 12:40 GMT.

"Overnight, engineers have responded to several unrelated power cuts across Newton le Willows, Bury, Oldham and Bolton due to faults on the underground electricity network," an ENW spokesperson added.

"We have teams on site carrying out repair work and expect power to be restored to properties later today."

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