Downtown Winnipeg power outage affects hundreds

WINNIPEG -- Hundreds of people in downtown Winnipeg were without power for several hours Sunday afternoon.

According to Manitoba Hydro, the outage happened around noon.

The affected area ranged from the Health Science Centre to the Exchange District. 

In a tweet, Manitoba Hydro said a bird caused the outage.

#mboutage Downtown Wpg: outage caused by a bird on a line. Crews working to restore power safely and quickly. Some additional issues posing challenges but we’re doing everything to get power restored to the area.

— Manitoba Hydro (@manitobahydro) December 6, 2020

The utility company later tweeted that there is a more complex fault causing the problem.

#mboutage Downtown Wpg: crews located an underground fault which is causing the extended outage. Still unable to confirm an ETR - unfortunately it’s a complex restoration.

— Manitoba Hydro (@manitobahydro) December 6, 2020

According to the Crown corporation’s website, about 800 customers were without power.

Manitoba Hydro gave an update at 6:50 p.m., saying power had been restored to most people.