Enlarge image

Suspension railway in Wuppertal: It still runs here

Photo: ThomasSaupe / Getty Images

A party balloon filled with helium caused a power outage in Wuppertal on Friday evening: around 20,000 households in the Langerfeld district were without power for around an hour, a spokesman for the municipal utilities said on Saturday.

Shortly before 10 p.m., the balloon got caught in a so-called busbar in the Weiterbreck substation and triggered a short circuit. There was an arc and a loud bang. This caused the power supply to be interrupted. Municipal utilities employees were able to quickly resolve the cause.

The Wuppertal suspension railway was also affected by the incident: it could not continue to operate during the power outage. Six trains that were running during this time drove to the next stations so that passengers could get off. The suspension railway resumed regular operations on Saturday morning, it was said.

kig/dpa