Phones restored

PHONE services in Shetland are still being restored after lightning strikes over the past two days caused outages in several areas.

BT said the worst hit community was Mid Yell where the main underground cable was damaged. Two engineers were on the isle on Thursday to decide whether a section of cable would need replacing.

BBC Radio Shetland has managed to restore its phone lines after they were put out of action, with broadcasting hopefully resuming on Friday after two days off air.

A BT spokesman said that Shetland got off relatively lightly compared to the rest of northern Scotland, where some area experienced seven days of lightning strikes.

Meanwhile Scottish and Southern Energy said they had managed to restore electrical power throughout the isles by Wednesday, with Yell once again the last area to be reconnected at 3.30pm.