Residents in Kennington woke up to more than just dark skies when a power cut caused blackouts across the area.

Towers School on Faversham Road was plunged into darkness as many pupils who turned round and went back home.

Headteacher Malcolm Ramsey said the school would reopen once power had been returned.

He said: “We’re currently closed as there is no power at all. We’ve got no phones, no heating and no light. According to EDF it’s the result of a broken cable in the road.

"We’re waiting for a generator to come that will be on the school site and that will be used to put electricity into the whole of this area. The time scale isn’t clear so it’s really as and when as regards to the school reopening.”

Staff remained on the site looking after those pupils who had to remain on the school’s premises.

Rush hour traffic also faced the consequences of a power outage when three sets of traffic lights went down including those on the busy Faversham Road/ Trinity Road junction.

The lights were eventually turned back on shortly before 9.30am.

At 5.39am today (October 21), 2,012 customers in the Faversham Road area of Kennington experienced an interruption to their power supplies because of a fault on an underground electricity cable.

An EDF Energy spokesman said: “EDF Energy Networks engineers restored supplies to 721 customers at 5.59am with all bar 58 customers back with power, in stages, by 6.39am.

“Work is continuing on restoring supplies to those final customers as quickly and as safely as possible.

“We appreciate how difficult it is to lose power and would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused by this incident.

“The final 58 customers without power in Faversham Road had supplies again at 2.05pm.”