What to Know About London's Mass Power Outage - Tempo.co English
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Swathes of homes and businesses across parts of London were affected by a power outage on Monday, October 5, 2026, according to Anadolu and The Independent.
The power cut affected 32 postcode areas, primarily in east London, at 10:32 a.m. local time. According to UK Power Networks, the electricity distribution network operator covering London, the South East, and East of England, the power outage was caused by a fault in an underground electricity network in the local area.
The power cut affected transportation and business activities in the British capital.
A pharmacy in north London was left short of medicine after being unable to order medication for the following day, meaning customers would not be able to collect their prescriptions, according to The Standard.
In Liverpool Street station, the busiest train station in the UK, blank departure screens were seen following the outage, with shops plunging into darkness. But the Network Rail confirmed there was no delay to train services.
Several offices also reported disruption after Wi-Fi connections were cut abruptly and computer monitors stopped working.
"All power went off, including all the lights and TVs and Wi-Fi. It was incredibly eerie and silent, and we could see through the glass atrium that all the floors in the building had lost power," a worker at Finsbury Square near Moorgate recounted his experience at his office building during the power outage to The Standard.
The worker also recalled how traffic lights stopped working as power was cut. It was confirmed by a spokesperson for TfL, the local public transport body in London, adding that CCTVs were also impacted but bus services were running as normal with extra precautions.
The Great Northern railway was also affected, with trains unable to stop at Essex Road Station due to platform lighting being out. Passengers were advised to travel via Old Street Station or Highbury and Islington Station, and to allow extra time for their journeys.
Authorities initially believed the power would come back on between 12:00 p.m. to 01:00 p.m., with advises for residents in affected areas to keep spare batteries, supply of bottled water, and non-perishable food.
UK Power Networks diverted power supplies 15 minutes after the outage began at 10:32 a.m. to restore power to 4,989 homes and businesses across all affected postcodes. Power was restored by 12:09 p.m., according to a statement on their website.
Further details regarding the cause of the underground network disruption were not immediately available.
A UK Power Networks spokesperson said: “We apologize for the inconvenience after a fault developed on our underground network in the Shoreditch area at 10:30 a.m. today."
“Power supplies were interrupted to several thousand properties and our engineers worked as quickly as is safely possible to reroute electricity to those affected, in stages, until 11:08 a.m., when all were back on supply.”
