London Underground LIVE: Cable fault behind disruption that ground network to a halt

There was widespread disruption across the network (Picture: Ruby Cline/PA Wire)

Almost the entire London Underground was down after a massive power failure on the network,a TfL source told Metro.

A brief power cut at about 2.30pm on Tuesday all but paralysed the Tube network,with the Elizabeth,Bakerloo,Jubilee and Northern lines entirelysuspended while others severely delayed.

The shutdown was caused by a cable fault in south-west London,leading to a fire at an electrical substation in Maida Vale,north-west London.

Commuters faced even more headaches after a trespasser at Mansion House,a fire alarm and a customer incident across three different stations caused delays to the Mildmay,Circle,Hammersmith & City and Victoria lines.

Even the London cable car was briefly shut down due to high lightning risk.

It was not just the TfL too. Trains running to and from London Liverpool Street and between Stratford and Tottenham Hale were delayed by up to 45 minutes until at least 9pm.

It was chaos of biblical proportions.

Ahmed Zain,from London,said he was travelling from Canary Wharf on the Tube when he heard of the meltdown.

He was forced to take a bus from Bond Street to Paddington where he was meeting a friend for a train.

At Sloane Square Station,a number of gates were not working properly,and people were told to disembark a Circle line train.

On the eastbound platform,passengers were urged to get off the train due to a trespasser on the track. Then the escalators also failed.

The power failure closed multiple lines (Picture X/@luxmy_g)

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An angry commuter told Metro that the delays are preventing him from getting to his date on time.

One passenger at High Street Kensington,who did not want to share his name,told Metro he was in a rush to get to Liverpool Street but stressed that ‘everything is a mess’ as he tried to figure out an alternative.

The Tube failure also disrupted thousands of 21 Pilots fans in London for their concert.

Chloe,Madison,and Lucy,all from Cornwall,had just arrived to London for the performance.

Chloe admitted they felt ‘stressed’ when they saw the lines were closed due to the outage.

Chloe,had just arrived to London for a concert (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

She told Metro they had looked into getting an Uber to Canary Wharf,but prices had surged.

The trio then decided to wait until the worst rush was over when the Elizabeth line reopened at Paddington.

Firefighters were called to the substation in Maida Vale where three metres of high-voltage cabling were destroyed.

A spokesperson said: ‘When the power goes out,the trains will have stopped,obviously,there’s emergency power on trains and stations so everything wouldn’t have gone completely black,if you were on there,but the trains would have stopped and we would have cleared some stations because there’s no electricity it might not necessarily be safe for them to be open…

‘Some people would have probably been stuck in a tunnel for a little bit of time.’

Bakerloo Line entrance closed at Paddington station (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

National Grid,which owns the high-voltage electricity grid in England and Wales,apologised for a ‘fault’ on its network causing the delays.

It said: ‘The fault was resolved within seconds and did not interrupt supply from our network,but a consequent voltage dip may have briefly affected power supplies on the low-voltage distribution network in the area.’

‘We once again apologise for any inconvenience and ongoing travel disruption.’

TfL’s chief operating officer Claire Mann described the interruption of the power supply to the network as ‘brief’.

She said in a statement: ‘We apologise to customers whose journeys will have been affected.

Multiple lines were suspended for hours,while others were hit with severe delays

‘We are working to get the whole network up and running again as quickly as possible.’

Power has been restored,but parts of the Bakerloo and Metropolitan lines are still suspended this morning.

There is also no service between Willesden Junction and Richmond on the Mildmay Line while Network Rail fix a points failure at South Acton.

Have you been affected by the power failure?