Police are investigating a power outage which is affecting thousands of people in the upper North Island today.
Alison Andrew the Chief Executive of Transpower says the cause of the problem was damage to the insulators on 3 affected transmission towers.
Andrews says, “We suspect that the insulators were shot out, the reason is we found some cartridges at the bottom of the tower it's very unusual for us to lose all the insulators in a stack, lightning can cause this damage but we suspect it was from people shooting the insulators, the glass insulators."
Due to the suspicious nature of the damage caused, the Northland CIB says it will be making further enquiries into the incident.
Efforts are underway to fix the damage and the aim is restore power to some of the areas affected tonight.
Andrews says, “we are going to be restoring one circuit to start with, we are hopeful, we are endeavouring to get that power back up tonight. If we are working well and the crews aren’t too fatigued and the weather conditions work for us we will try to get the second circuit back up but that may not be up until tomorrow.”
Transpower has apologised for the inconvenience, people in need of urgent assistance are being urged to contact 111 until power is fully restored.