Nova Scotia Power investigating damage to underground equipment in Dartmouth

Nova Scotia Power crews areinvestigating after some underground equipment was damaged indowntown Dartmouth on Saturday morning, leaving nearly 1,400 customers without electricity.

Halifax Regional Police had blocked off an area of Portland Streetafter reports of a "loud banging noise" and smoke coming from an undergroundsubstationhatch.

Fire crews were also called to the scene just before 9 a.m. AT.

"We got called to an underground Nova Scotia Power hatch in front of the art gallery," said Halifax district fire chief Lloyd Currie.

"The police were on scene before us and they could hearsome loud banging noise and then the power went out."

The outage was caused by a faulty underground transformer that shorted, an email from Halifax police said.

Power was restored to almost all 1,400 customers just after 11 a.m. AT.

"There are still approximately 45 [customers] without power related to the damage to the underground equipment,"Kathryn O'Neill, a spokesperson forNova Scotia Power, said in a text message at 12:20 p.m. AT.

"Crews continue to be on site and working to restore power as quickly as possible."

Estimated restoration time for the remaining outages was3:15 p.m. AT.

Police and fire crews hadleft the area by Saturday afternoon and the streetreopened.