THOUSANDS of homes were left without power after a cable exploded underground.

The force of the blast lifted up a section of pavement in a street in Guisborough.

Technicians were last night trying to determine the cause of the power surge, which affected 2,473 homes.

Firefighters were called to reports of an explosion in Church Street, at about 10.45pm on Thursday.

On arrival, firecrews found it involved an underground cable in which there had been a power surge.

The emergency services stood by while the electricity board dealt with the incident.

Of the homes affected, 2,017 had their power restored within 40 minutes, with the remainder restored in a little more than an hour.

The power surge also affected homes in surrounding areas, including Wilton village, near Redcar, and Saltburn.

Homes in these areas experienced short bursts of power loss while electricians worked on repairing the cables.

A spokeswoman for CE Electric UK, which works on behalf of NEDL, said there had been a fault on a cable underground.

Technicians were yesterday carrying out excavations to try to determine the cause of the fault.

The spokeswoman said: "When the cable faulted, it did raise the pavement on a particular street. The fire brigade were called, but they just stood by - they did not actually have to do anything. They were there just as a backup and did not have to get involved.

"We do have underground cable faults, we have them every day. I don't think this is really any different. Obviously, it did raise the pavement and it doesn't usually do that, but I don't think it was as extreme as an explosion.

"We got customers back up as quickly as possible. We would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience that has been caused.

"We are carrying out an investigation as to what was the actually cause."

Staff from the Anchor Inn, in Belmangate, had to send customers home.

Landlady Denise Batty said: "We were left in compete darkness. We didn't get switched back on till about an hour and three-quarters.

"We had to go back to the old-fashioned days, by washing stuff by hand. We had to send customers home because there was no electricity."