AN UNDERGROUND explosion sent a man-hole cover flying into the air leaving nearly 200 properties without power.

Firefighters were called to Market Street in Stalybridge just before 5.20am. The fire had gone out by the time they arrived but the ground nearby was scorched and the man hole cover was damaged.

Christian Ewen, from United Utilities, said this morning: "We received a report at approximately 5.35am today that the Market Street area of Stalybridge had experienced a loss of power supplies.

"Our engineers were dispatched to site immediately and following investigations they discovered that a fault had occurred underground - causing the link box to short out.

"We do not know what has caused the fault as our priority this morning is to restore supplies to the 183 customers affected as quickly as possible.

"We have another team of engineers arriving on-site shortly to assist with repairs and we expect to have repairs completed and supplies restored by 2pm this afternoon. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."