Three ‘dramatic explosions’ were heard in Marlborough during an incident today (Tuesday).
Fire crews were called to the High Street after fibre broadband contractors cut through underground cables – knocking some of the town’s power out.
As the gaffe was made by Gigaclear workers, a plume of orangey-brown smoke was seen in the air.
It’s believed around 1000 properties were affected by the outage, with many businesses forced to close their doors as Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) worked to restore power.
A firm spokesperson said: “We’d like to thank our customers in and around Marlborough High Street for their patience earlier today, as our teams worked hard to get their power back on after a third party had struck one of our underground cables.
“In situations like this, our priority is to restore our customers’ power as safely and as quickly as possible, and we were able to do this today by re-routing supplies to different parts of the network, with everyone’s power back on shortly after 12:30.”
Gigaclear confirmed that it is investigating the incident in a bid to establish what happened.
Firefighters from Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service attended the scene to ensure public safety – but left when SSEN engineers arrived to start repairs.
A spokesperson said: “We were called to the High Street in Marlborough at 10.57am this morning after workers cut through an underground mains electric cable.
“One crew from Marlborough is maintaining scene safety, and SSEN are now on site to make the necessary repairs.”
