Major Power Outage Suffered Across Amsterdam

Hospitals, trains, trams and the metro were all hit by a major power cut in the Dutch capital Amsterdam and the surrounding area.

The electricity network operator, Tennet, said the regional outage was caused by a grid "overload" at a high-voltage power station in the town of Diemen.

Power was restored a few hours later.

The outage had led to traffic jams across the capital as a result of traffic lights turning off, and the electric-powered tram system was brought to a standstill, as thousands of commuters were stranded.

Schiphol airport was switched to backup power and all flights were diverted to airports in Belgium and Germany because of the cut.

Hospitals were also forced to rely on backup power while many trains were stranded due to signal failures.

The ANP news agency said the outage covered large parts of the province of North Holland, including the nearby broadcasting centre of Hilversum.