Rush-hour traffic chaos as fire cuts power for four hours

MOTORISTS faced traffic chaos and almost 300 houses were without power after a fire in an underground electricity cable forced emergency workers to close Shaw Road, Oldham.

Firefighters called in engineers from United Utilities after smoke was spotted coming out of the ground shortly after 3pm yesterday.

They detected a fault in an underground cable and had to cut electricity supply to the area to enable them to carry out repairs.

A total of 275 houses in the Shaw Road area suffered a power cut for more than four hours.

A United Utilities spokeswoman apologised for the disruption, and said power was restored as quickly as possible.

One motorist caught up in rush-hour traffic said his normal 10-minute journey from Oldham town centre to Shaw took 40 minutes.

He said: “Traffic was being diverted down Salmon Fields and the road just couldn’t cope, it was chaos.”