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News / Hogmanay power cuts

The fierce westerly gale was strong enough to blow over this electricity pole near the A970. Photo: Shetland News

MANY Shetlanders spent the final hours of the old year in darkness thanks to an unnamed storm that swept across the isles taking down the main power line between Lerwick and Sullom Voe.

Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks confirmed that more than 4,000 of its customers in the north mainland and the north isles were without power

A spokeswoman for SSEN said engineers were alerted to weather-related damage to a pole and overhead power lines at the north end of the Kames at 8.30pm on Hogmanay.

Engineers were able to restore the first batch of customers within the hour and all customers affected were back on supply by 11.12pm, SSEN said. The power went again for short periods after midnight.

The areas affected were Voe, Brae, Firth, Mid Yell, Gutcher and Unst.

The spokeswoman added: “We would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused and thank them for their patience as our engineers worked to safely restore their power as quickly as possible on Hogmanay.”

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