Some Northland residents have had their power restored amid ongoing widespread outages today.
Transpower earlier said Northland lost power after a tower fell near Glorit about 11am and most of its 65,000 customers were affected. Top Energy was also reporting outages from Kaitāia to Cape Reinga.
About 2.30pm Transpower said partial restoration was on the way for Northland. Crews are at the site of the fallen tower, working through options to restore further power to the region.
Transpower said it had been able to reconfigure the power system to provide power from local sources, such as the geothermal generation at Ngāwhā.
The tower fell while a second transmission circuit supplying these areas was out of service for scheduled maintenance.
Whangārei mayor Vince Cocurullo earlier said residents and businesses should keep devices turned off for when the power comes back.
Cocurullo told Midday Report he was in a council meeting at the time and had been getting updates from officials.
"This is probably a one-off outage that I've seen in a long long time but this has taken the whole of Northland out so this has gone back to the time when we had Cyclone Gabrielle, with Cyclone Gabrielle, we still had Whangārei city up and running...where as this case here, the whole of Northland's gone."
Transpower was working to restore power, he said.
He asked people to be responsible, drive safely and treat all powerline and power points as live.
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) is advising Northlanders that widespread power outages are affecting traffic signals on both local roads and state highways.
Drivers are urged to approach intersections with caution.
Police are at some intersections and NZTA asked people to follow all instructions. When police aren't there, standard give way rules apply.
Drivers must also be prepared for potentially dangerous road hazards such as flooding, slips, tree and rock falls, NZTA says.
