south wales explosion
© Connor Smitham
Almost 10,000 homes were plunged into darkness as power left parts of Swansea.

Residents around the Marina heard a loud explosion and emergency services were rushed to the scene.

The incident at Monmouth House in Cambrian Place is not being treated as suspicious and teams are working to solve the problem.

Fire station manager Steve Richards said at the scene: "It's an underground cable fault. We responded to several calls of a large explosion in the vicinity of Monmouth House.

"It's not clear if this is linked to the power outage across Swansea."

Residents said the force of the explosion caused a brick to fly through the air.

south wales explosion
© Connor Smitham
"I was on my balcony and there was a massive explosion. I saw a big orange flash," said Stuart Hamer, resident.

Nearby resident Don King said: "I was watching TV, then I heard a big bang and all the electric went off. I've never heard anything like it before...it's quite exciting.

"There was nothing good on TV anyway!"

Another resident added there was "one hell of a bang...old people were frightened".

A spokesman for Western Power Distribution said 9,477 customers were affected by the 7.30pm outage, but power had been restored to all but 117 of them by 9pm.

The Welsh Ambulance Service scrambled a rapid response vehicle to the scene but received no reports of injuries.

Police are currently directing traffic and fire crews are on standby as engineers work to get to the affected parts underground.

Residents in an up-beat mood can be seen outside the building.

Some parts of Swansea were reconnected at just after 8pm.

At the start of the power cut residents were told they may have no power, or intermittent power,until 10.30pm.

Western Power tweeted at the time: "We're currently fault-finding in the Swansea SA1 area, customers in the surrounding area may see their power going on and off, apologies.

"Engineers aim to restore power by 10.30pm."

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