More than 8,000 premises lost power due to an underground cable fault in Rainham.

Shops in Rainham Village and elsewhere closed after the power cut began at 11am today.

The fire brigade was called to an electrical sub-station in Upminster Road South, part of which had caught alight and blown out, and remained on hand while power company representatives investigate the incident.

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said that the outage had affected supplies to 8,316 customers, with 4,093 having it restored within 12 minutes.

Most of the rest had the power back on by midday, with 148 still without power for longer after that.

She added: “UK Power Networks understands how difficult it is to be without electricity and would like to apologise to those affected.”