London workers face disruption after Holborn blaze

Many London commuters face difficult journeys on Thursday morning following an underground electrical fire that disrupted businesses, theatres and law courts.

A major traffic artery in central London remains closed as firefighters continue to battle the blaze on Kingsway, near Holborn station, blocking several bus routes.

Many offices in the area are still without power and some staff are being told to work from home. The Royal Courts of Justice remains closed, as does Somerset House and buildings belonging to the London School of Economics.

Brunswick, the public relations group, said its office in Lincoln's Inn Fields was open and it was "business as usual". But the company is relying on a back-up generator until power is restored in the area.

More than 5,000 people were evacuated after the fire started on Wednesday afternoon and a number of West End productions were cancelled mid-performance due to power outages.

The Lyceum, Duchess and Aldwych theatres suspended performances as UK Power Networks said more than 3,000 customers were left without electricity.

The company last night said power had been successfully restored to 2,000 customers.

"Crews are currently working hard to excavate and isolate the damaged parts of the network, then reroute power to the remaining 600 customers overnight," he said.

It is thought the fire could have been caused by an overload on the electricity network, which some experts say has been creaking under the pressure of increased demand. UK Power Networks deny that rising demand has created problems.

On Wednesday a separate power cut in east London left almost 5,000 people in darkness.

Peter Cowup, assistant commissioner for the London Fire Brigade said the incident had been "technically difficult" to tackle.

"The reason that the fire is still burning is because the service tunnel is hard to reach and although firefighters have been applying water through access points throughout the night, the complexity of the tunnel layout means that it will be some time until the fire is fully extinguished."

At the height of the blaze 70 firefighters and 10 engines were at the scene.

Transport for London has told passengers to check travel updates before beginning their journeys this morning.

Elsewhere in the city commuters have been warned of delays in northwest London after an unrelated fire broke out on an industrial unit in Park Royal. More than 100 firefighters and 15 engines are at the scene.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation