Power outage hits Washington, White House

WASHINGTON: A power outage on Friday caused a blackout in parts of downtown Washington, including the White House, leaving thousands without electricity and sparking fires on the subway, officials said.

About 12,000 customers were without power for approximately two and a half hours, the local PEPCO utility company said, after problems at a substation.

The blackout area included the White House, although an AFP correspondent said it was business as usual, if only with a few less lights on. "We are running on generator power," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said before electricity was restored.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the vice-president's office is based, was also thought to be affected, while staff were seen standing outside many other buildings in the downtown area.

Two fires broke out on the subway after the track insulators overheated, fire service spokesman Alan Etter said. "In both cases (subway operator) Metro employees were able to apply a dry chemical extinguisher," he told media. "There were no injuries."

Passengers were evacuated and several fire trucks were deployed to one station inundated with the smoke from the blaze, which had filled the track tunnel, he said.

Earlier, subway operator Metro said it was operating a delayed service but a number of stations were operating on emergency lighting, "so they are significantly darker than usual." Escalators and ticket machines were not working, it said.

At one station, Dupont Circle, nine people had to be given help after they became "overexerted" walking up the long escalator to street level, Etter said.

One of these was sent to hospital as a precaution after the effort caused his defibrilator to malfunction, he added.