SINGAPORE — Over 3,000 SP Group customers in the Central Business District (CBD) and Chinatown were affected by a blackout on Friday (June 1) afternoon, as buildings went dark and traffic lights were out of service.

SP Group said in a statement that electricity supply to parts of Raffles Quay, Robinson Road and Shenton Way was disrupted at about 2.41 pm. An estimated 3,156 customers were affected.

“Our officers were immediately deployed to the affected areas and our priority was to restore supply as safely and quickly as possible,” SP Group added.

Electricity supply was progressively restored via remote switching and supply was fully restored within 34 minutes, by 3.15 pm, said the statement.

“We are investigating the cause of the disruption,” the utilities firm added.

Earlier, office workers took to social media to report that lifts and traffic lights were out of service.

Affected buildings were said to include the Arcade, Capital Tower and Chinatown Point. Some buildings, among them Republic Plaza and Springleaf Tower, were unaffected.

Media professional Sally Yang, who is in her 20s, told TODAY that the power at her office at 71 Robinson Road went out at about 2.45pm.

She added: "We initially thought it was just a light issue because our phones and wifi were working. Later, we realised the toilets, lifts, were not working, and that there was no electricity. The traffic lights around our building were also out.

"People were generally calm, but then later slightly worried because some colleagues were caught in the lifts."

Ms Zann Kwan, Bitcoin Exchange’s Chief Executive Officer said “the crowd (at Chinatown Point) was very calm and there was no panic at all”.

“People started to switch on the lights on their phone to navigate around,” she said.

The power outage affected her Bitcoin machines in Chinatown Point, but she said no one was transacting at the machines at the point of time. Power was restored by around 3.30pm.

Mr Vaibhav Dabhade, chief executive officer and founder of an e-commerce company, said he was at 71 Robinson Rd when the power outage happened. He took the stairs from his 15th floor office to get to a meeting in a different location.

“In my 15 years in Singapore, I’ve never seen a blackout,” said Mr Dabhade.

While it was business as usual for some companies after power was restored, others said they were inconvenienced by the outage.

Mr Bonar Pasaribu, 58, admin manager of finance firm Business Network International (BNI) Singapore said the outage at his Robinson Road office caused “great inconvenience”, and that it should not have happened in the financial district.

Ms Carmen Ho, 30, a brand manager whose firm is at 77 Robinson Road, said that they were not able to continue working after power resumed as the disruption resulted in issues with their server and wifi.

“It was taking a long time, even at 4 plus it still wasn’t working so we were let off early,” she said.

It was the same situation for market analyst Sharon Hiu, 30, as the power and Internet service were still down at her office in Keck Seng Tower, Cecil Street, at 5pm.

Aside from offices, other establishments in the CBD such as cafes, eateries and delivery courier firms were also affected.

Ms Sitara Khatun, 22, a hawker stall owner at Lau Pa Sat, said the blackout affected business at her stall. “The customers could not eat with all the lights off, and no one came to my stall for about 30, 40 minutes,” she added.

Capital Tower Starbucks supervisor Muhammad Restu was serving the lunchtime crowd when the cafe went dark. “It was quite crowded (when it happened), and the customers complained to us,” he said.

The delays from the power outage, along with the time it took to reboot the systems and equipment, meant that customers had to wait for almost one hour to get their food and drinks, he added.

The power outage also proved challenging for some Muslim workers who were fasting.

UPS delivery courier Muhammad Hykal, 29, said he and his team could not use the elevators at Capital Tower to make their deliveries. “We couldn’t take the stairs because we are fasting, and the majority of my colleagues are Muslim,” he said.