HUNDREDS of residents and several businesses were hit by a power cut in Blackburn town centre.

An electricity surge caused computers to start smouldering in Farley’s Solicitors in Richmond Terrace at 10am.

Fire crews were called out from Blackburn, Darwen and Hyndburn as the fire service received a number of calls.

Around 20 staff were evacuated from Farley’s along with 50 workers at nearby Bootstrap offices and Abacus office supplies in Tontine Road.

Electricity North West confirmed they had 600 customers without power following the incident.

They did door-to-door visits to check on affected properties.

Blackburn watch manager Gary Hargreaves said: “We were initially called to Farley’s with reports of smoke coming from their computer equipment.

“Then we got reports of a number of further incidents in the surrounding area.

"We are currently investigating a suspected power surge and what has caused that to happen.

“We’ve asked the electricity board to attend and are checking properties one by one.”

Workers were seen carrying computer parts out of the solicitors.

There is ongoing underground mains maintenance work in the Richmond Terrace and Limbrick areas, but that is not believed to have caused the problem.

Electricity North West response manager, Jane Fleetwood, said: “A fault at a substation caused 601 customers to lose power around the Randal Street area of Blackburn at 10am on Tuesday morning.

“The fault caused high voltages in some homes and we contacted customers directly to inform them of the situation, assess any damage and restore their power supply as quickly as possible.

“We apologise to customers for any inconvenience.

“And I can assure them that we were working to restore supplies as soon as possible.”