Amsterdam outage causes Schipol flight disruptions

All flights to and from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport are temporarily canceled after a major blackout hit the city and surrounding towns.

Dutch electricity network administrator TenneT said a significant part of North Holland province, home to some 2.7 million people, was affected.

The operator later said power had been restored.

Incoming flights were still being diverted from Schiphol airport – one of Europe’s busiest terminals.

The hub was forced to run on emergency power, as the outage caused widespread disruption.

The power outage was triggered by a “technical fault” at a substation in the Amsterdam suburb of Diemen, TenneT said on Twitter.

TenneT said its engineers were working hard to fix the problem.

Public transport across the Netherlands was affected, with trains cancelled and passengers stuck in lifts, trams and subways, according to reports.

Hospitals were operating on backup power, NOS public television said.