Cable fire cuts power to 50,000 Berlin households, 2,000 businesses

Power was cut to 50,000 households and 2,000 businesses in the south-west of Berlin on Saturday following a fire affecting a grid cable link, the Stromnetz Berlin provider said.

"It is not yet clear when power will be restored," company spokesman Henrik Beuster told dpa. This would happen in stages, he said.

A cable link over the Teltow Canal carrying a number of cables to the nearby Lichterfelde power station had been damaged by the fire, he said. The fire was now out, Beuster said. The cause of the blaze remained unknown.

A fire services spokesman said the alarm had gone out shortly after 6 am (0500 GMT). Among the facilities needing help were a home for the elderly, he said.

Stromnetz Berlin said the outage was comparable with one in September in the south-east of the German capital. In that case the outage persisted for several days.

It was caused by a politically motivated attack on two power pylons. In this case, police initially provided no information on the cause.