Thousands of Wigan homes without power after cable fault causes substation to spectacularly blow a fuse

Sparks were seen blasting up to 15ft into the air from the unit on Prescott Lane, Kitt Green, at midnight on Sunday June 26.

A Wigan fire crew closed the road for an hour while experts from Electricity North West and Cadent attended to the emergency as burglar alarms sounded all round the neighbourhood and many homes and streets were plunged into darkness.

Crew manager Bryan Stewart said: “We were called there because someone said that the substation was on fire but in fact this wasn’t the case.

"It had gone ‘pop’ and someone’s ring door bell had caught the images of all these sparks showering 10 to 15ft up into the air.

”We were on standby to put a fire out should one have developed but it didn’t and so we left it to the engineers to sort the issues out.

”At midnight, when we arrived, the street lights were on and some of the houses nearby were lit up but then at 12.30am, the whole area went dark. We left at around 1am, our job done. It turned out only to be a precautionary role in the end.”

A spokesperson for Electricity North West: “We received reports of a power cut at 11.44pm yesterday night affecting 3,052 properties in Wigan due to a fault with an underground electricity cable.

“Our automatic restoration systems restored electricity to 1,873 properties within three minutes and engineers worked through the night to restore the remaining properties by 4.24am.

“If anyone needs any more information during a power cut, they can follow Electricity North West on Twitter or Facebook for updates, or call us free on 105.”