Sparks fly as crews called to roadworks

LOUD bangs and flashes came from a hole in the road where electric repairs were being carried out.

Fire crews said they were called to reports of loud banging and flashes from a hole in the road on High Street in Bollington, where roadworks were taking place at 1am on Thursday January 12.

Firefighters said that on arrival they found that electrical cables had become submerged in water. After cordoning off the area, crews stood by with dry powder before isolating the cables.

But Electricity North West, which had been carrying out the work, said that the sparks were not caused by the wires being in water.

They said the work was being carried out to address problems with the electricity supply in the area and that there was a power cut on the street for just over two hours following the incident

A spokesman for Electricity North West, said: “An underground cable fault caused the loss of supply to 93 customers on High Street at 12.45am.

“Our engineers quickly arrived to ensure the area was safe and will conduct an investigation into the cause. Power was restored at 3am.

“The fault, which occurred on a piece of equipment underneath the pavement, caused external damage but we assure customers that incidents of this nature are extremely rare and we regularly maintain our underground network.”