Much of Wellington has been swallowed by the great darkness on Saturday night after a mass streetlight outage.
Wellington City Council (WCC) media manager Richard MacLean tells Newshub about half of the city has been affected after the lights failed to turn on around dusk.
"We have had reports that the lights are out across a large portion of the city from Miramar in the eastern suburbs and the CBD and also all the way to western suburbs like Karori," he says.
"It's not the best of conditions by any stretch of the imagination. It's pitch black and you know people are - especially in the suburbs - are having to take care walking around on the streets so it's not good."
Images posted to Twitter show roads engulfed by the night, with one set captioned: "Hello @WgtnCC I'd like to order some streetlights I can't see anything."
MacLean says WCC has been advised by Wellington Electricity, which looks after the street lights, that they are urgently trying to figure out what the problem is and get the lights back on. He adds they'll probably know more in the morning.
"We are liaising with Wellington Electricity and we will be talking to them to try and find out what the problem is and hopefully make sure that it doesn't happen again anytime soon," he tells Newshub.
"Obviously it's not the best having dark streets, it just makes getting around slightly more hazardous than normal so people just have to take care especially in suburban streets where there's little background lighting."
