Town left in dark and Tesco forced to remove thousands of pounds of stock after major power cut

A town and surrounding villages were plunged into darkness last night after a major power cut. The outage happened in the Ruthin area after most people had gone to bed.

Those who were still up, or got woken, said that the town went "pitch black everywhere" and dogs were barking and alarms were going off. It also affected a number of nearby villages like Rhewl.

Some said the power was only off for a short period after the initial outage between 2am and 3am. But others said power remained off until at least 9am this morning. Read more: Wales tourism tax: What we know so far about visitor levy, from when it's coming in to who will pay

It was bad news for the town's Tesco store. Shoppers said they turned up and were told that all chilled goods and a lot of frozen produce had been removed from the store due to the power going down. Tesco confirmed the losses but said the store was open as usual.

SP Energy Networks confirmed the power cut had affected many LL15 postcodes - as well as a few in LL16. They said power had now been fully restored.

On Ruthin Facebook groups, one person posted: "For those not up at the middle of the night, 3am all street lights out (Glasdir Estste, not sure anywhere else in town). Can hear lots of alarms going off. Electricity has gone in the house." They urged people to check fridges/freezers in the morning.

Another said that the "whole of Ruthin is off" and a resident said they'd let the dog out and it was "pitch black everywhere".

One local added: "My dogs are absolutely freaking out, I've never seen them like this."

A Tesco spokesperson said: "Our Ruthin Superstore is open as normal today following a power cut in the local area overnight. Unfortunately, we have had to withdraw chilled food and some frozen food from sale after the power cut affected our fridges and freezers. We are working to return the store to full availability in the coming hours and we apologise for the inconvenience."

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