A MASSIVE power cut plunged city centre shops, business and residents into darkness this morning.

Residents and businesses in parts of Bury, Prestwich and Salford were also affected, causing problems for almost 37,000 homes.

Failure

The failure was caused by an overhead power failure was reported at 10.40am this morning. United Utilities said they did not know what had caused the failure but had despatched engineers to try to fix the problem as soon as possible.

Businesses in the Arndale, the Northern Quarter,and along Corporation Street were affected. Marks & Spencer and Selfridges were also left in the dark along with office workers in St Ann's Square and the CIS tower. The Metrolink service was interrupted. The system failed in the city centre and on the Altrincham to Manchester line.

Alarm

Meanwhile, alarm bells rang, triggered by the power cut, as banks and offices shut their doors to bewildered customers. The powercut also hit phonelines, rendering them dead.

Hundreds of commuters were hit by the outage.

A spokesman for the Greater Manchester Passengers Transport Executive said tram services had been stopped in their tracks.
He said no trams were running in Manchester city centre or on routes out to Salford Quays and Altrincham.

Passes

The GMPTE spokesman said trams were running between Bury and Victoria, and between Salford Quays and Eccles. He added that season-ticket holders could use their passes on the 263 bus.
City centre businesses were informed that power would be restored at around 2pm, but further afield not until 8pm.

Network Rail said trains were unable to travel in or out of the city's Victoria station for 20 minutes as signalling was affected by the power cut.
A spokesman said: “Network Rail immediately switched to a back-up power supply and a service recovery was put in place.
“Normal train services are expected to resume by lunch.”