According to the American company Pacific Gas and Electric, on Saturday, as a result of massive power outages in San Francisco, the power was stopped in about 130,000 homes and businesses, the Associated Press reports.
The power outage left most of the northern part of the city without power, from the Richmond and Presidio neighborhoods to the area around Golden Gates Park. The disruptions were later expanded.
As a result, about a third of the utility company's consumers in the city were left without electricity. Mass closures of restaurants and shops, dimming of street lights and holiday decorations were reported on social networks and local media.
San Francisco's emergency department said there were "significant disruptions" to transportation throughout the city and urged residents to avoid non-essential travel, treating the outages as four-way stops.
According to the company, some of the outages were caused by a fire that broke out at a PG&E substation at 3:15 p.m. local time. At about 4:00 p.m., PG&E said it had stabilized the power grid and did not expect any more outages.
