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LONDON — Power went out in parts of London and southeastern England Thursday, two weeks after New York and other parts of the Northeast were hit by a massive blackout (search).
Much of the London Underground (search) and many regional trains ground to a halt during evening rush hour.
It was not immediately clear how widespread the outages were. London Electricity said power (search) appeared to have gone out in parts of south London and Kent, a county southeast of the city.
A spokesman for the Underground said 60 percent of the subway system had been halted by the outage, including the majority of services in central London.
Workers were evacuating affected trains and stations. The outage came at the height of the evening rush hour, and news reports said many passengers were stuck underground.
London Underground said the problems were caused by a failure on the national power grid.
EDF Energy, which handles some power transmission for London, said it had lost electricity for large parts of south London.
"It's difficult to predict how long this is going to take," a spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "National Grid has got to get the circuit back."
A spokesman for the British Transport Police said the outage had affected all of south London's major overland train stations -- Victoria, London Bridge, Waterloo -- and halted all the area's main train lines.
"Some stations are in darkness and others have emergency lighting," he said.
Much of the London Underground (search) and many regional trains ground to a halt during evening rush hour.
It was not immediately clear how widespread the outages were. London Electricity said power (search) appeared to have gone out in parts of south London and Kent, a county southeast of the city.
A spokesman for the Underground said 60 percent of the subway system had been halted by the outage, including the majority of services in central London.
Workers were evacuating affected trains and stations. The outage came at the height of the evening rush hour, and news reports said many passengers were stuck underground.
London Underground said the problems were caused by a failure on the national power grid.
EDF Energy, which handles some power transmission for London, said it had lost electricity for large parts of south London.
"It's difficult to predict how long this is going to take," a spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "National Grid has got to get the circuit back."
A spokesman for the British Transport Police said the outage had affected all of south London's major overland train stations -- Victoria, London Bridge, Waterloo -- and halted all the area's main train lines.
"Some stations are in darkness and others have emergency lighting," he said.
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