AREAS of Newport were affected by power cuts early this afternoon because of a damaged underground cable.

Western Power Distribution (WPD) said that 1,839 customers were affected by the power cuts at 12.23pm and the outages were focused around Herbert Street, though there were reports of power cuts on East Usk Road.

Although 951 customers were reconnected within a minute of the power going out, supplies were interrupted as engineers from WPD tried to figure out what the problem was.

By 1.05pm, all but four customers were reconnected without further issues.

The four still without power were connected to a generator at 1.21pm so that engineers could make repairs.

A spokeswoman from WPD said: "We had 1,839 Customers affected by third party cable damage.

"Somebody was doing work somewhere and then they went into one of our underground cables.

"Then they actually informed us of what they had done and we went out straight away to sort it out."

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