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Power has been restored to Tauranga residents following a major outage that caused traffic chaos this afternoon.

A fault at Transpower’s Mount Maunganui substation cut power to 21,529 customers about 12.30pm, a Powerco spokesperson said.

Suburbs affected included Mount Maunganui, Arataki, Te Maunga and Pāpāmoa Beach.

An employee of Ebbett Prestige on Hewletts Rd/State Highway 2 earlier said traffic lights had gone out.

“Multiple cars are going whichever way they want to go, pulling out in front of people and not stopping,” he said.

“Multiple businesses have power outages right throughout down the street [Hewletts Rd].”

Another employee said the power was out all the way to Pāpāmoa.

A police spokesman said contractors had been advised about the traffic lights and officers were responding to the issue where able. 

A 1.20pm update said Powerco had been able to backfeed power to half of its network, while Transpower teams worked to get the remaining power on. 

Bay of Plenty Civil Defence said via social media that several hundred homes had lost power in Mount Maunganui and it was also affecting traffic lights, advising people to take care on the roads. 

Transpower earlier thanked people for their patience while its crews worked to restore power and investigate the cause of the substation fault.