The Bahamas Power and Light company, (BPL) says an electrical fire at the Blue Hills Power Station caused an island-wide blackout across New Providence early Thursday after a suspected underground cable fault triggered the explosion of a transformer.
In its initial update, BPL said the fire at the power station resulted in a complete loss of electricity across the island.
The utility later reported that preliminary investigations indicate a suspected fault in an underground cable caused a 15-megavolt-ampere (15 MVA) transformer to explode, leading to the widespread outage.
BPL said the fire was quickly brought under control and repair crews were immediately deployed to begin restoration efforts. Initially, the company said it could not provide an estimated timeline for the return of service.
By 6:00 a.m. (local time) BPL announced that electricity was being restored in phases to protect the stability and integrity of the power grid.
The utility said restoration crews would remain on the ground working to return service to the remaining customers as safely and quickly as possible.