About 1,300 people in the west of the island were left without electricity for nearly 40 minutes on Wednesday last week (April 4).

The power outage occurred between 2pm and 2.38pm and was caused by a fault in equipment at a substation in St John’s, which provides power to homes in Peel and other areas in the west.

Manx Utilities Authority (MUA) said the power outage was due to a ’failure of switchgear’, which is a piece of equipment ’on the distribution network’. Engineers attended the scene and diverted the power supplies via an ’alternative means’ making sure that the fault was isolated while repairs were undertaken.

The MUA told the Courier yesterday that repair works were still under way.

Walkers on the old railway line claim that they heard a ’large bang’ and a ’flash’ in the direction of the station that same day.