Thousands still without power

Power will not be fully restored until Sunday

Five thousand homes were still without power on Saturday following a fire at an electricity substation.

The fire happened at 2300 BST on Thursday in Chase Terrace, Burntwood.

It initially affected 45,000 homes and by Saturday morning 5,000 were still without power with the problem not expected to be fully solved until Sunday.

Electricity company Aquila apologised for the disruption and said residents affected would have to write to them to claim compensation.

Cause unknown

Liam Herbert, communications manager for Aquila, said engineers had worked day and night to try and restore the problem.

"We have a team of engineers at the station but also dispatched teams to other areas so we could switch supplies."

Mr Herbert said the cause of the fire was unknown.

"We have our major incident team looking into the problem but our priority is to restore power before we look into cause."

Tony Poynton, who lives with his wife in a flat in Humphries House, Brownhills, said it was "marvellous" when power was restored on Friday afternoon.

"The freezer food had melted, the fish were gasping and my wife was very nervous, it was very upsetting," he said.

"We were one of the lucky ones on the lower floor for people living higher up it must have been very frightening."