Central Auckland power restored after brief outage

Auckland.
Auckland. Photo credit: Getty

Power has been restored to Auckland CBD after a brief but "chaotic" outage on Thursday affected public transport, universities and traffic signals.

Power has also been returned to the neighbouring suburb of Parnell, Vector confirmed shortly before 2pm.

"We can now confirm that power to the remaining parts of Parnell has also now been restored," Vector said in a tweet.

The cause of the outage remains unknown and is currently being investigated. 

Auckland Transport (AT) confirmed at 1:30pm that power has been restored to Britomart Train Station.

"Trains will now be arriving and departing from Britomart. Please expect delays and cancellations until services return to normal. Normal services will resume at 3pm," it wrote in a tweet.

Train services at Britomart were disrupted earlier on Thursday, with the southern, western and Onehunga lines terminating at Newmarket and the eastern line at Orakei. 

People from the University of Auckland, Britomart and elsewhere in the CBD reported the loss of electricity shortly after 12:30pm.

"Power is out all over Auckland. Sirens everywhere," one person wrote on Twitter.

Traffic signals were also out, AT confirmed, making the streets "chaotic".

The outage also affected the neighbouring suburbs of Parnell and Grafton. Areas of Parnell still remain without power.

"Vector’s electricity operations centre is remotely redirecting power flows to as many affected customers as possible, and our crews are currently working on the fault," a Vector spokesperson told Newshub.

"Customers in these areas should prepare to be without power for some time while we respond to the outage. The objective of our crews is to do this as quickly as possible while ensuring the safety of our crews and the public.

"People can keep up to date with restoration work relevant to their specific address through the Vector Outage Centre, available on vector.co.nz/outages."