Cardiff power cut plunges city into chaos as traffic lights stop working and hundreds of buildings lose electricity

Over 500 buildings thought to be affected by outage

Businesses in central Cardiff have been affected by the power cut (Google)

A power cut in Cardiff left traffic lights out of action and hundreds of buildings without electricity, causing major disruption across the city centre.

Major delays were reported on roads including St Mary Street and Wood Street, while Queen Street and Castle street were also affected.

Around 500 properties were hit by the outage, with the majority reported to be commercial buildings.

Arriva Trains Wales said they haven't had any reports of the outage impacting services.

But people in Cardiff reported confusion and bemusement at the situation.

One shop keeper reported hearing a loud bang at the moment the power cut out, Wales Online reports.

Shops were closed with many premises automatic alarms going off.

Western Power Distribution said most of their customers had seen power restored.

By 3 o clock power to traffic lights had been restored and traffic was moving again. Fire crews dealt with one incidence of a person being trapped in a lift.

A spokeswoman said: “929 customers were affected. Initially, we restored all power within six minutes and then it went off again.

“We then restored power to 259 customers within the first 20 minutes, and then restored the rest bar five within 30 minutes.

“Five properties are still without power.”

They said the outage was due to damage to a cable in the “Wood Street square” area and are currently investigating the exact cause.