A massive explosion left roughly 150,000 people in Tomsk without electricity for two hours on Thursday. The blast rocked the city’s “Vostochnaya” power substation just before 2 p.m., knocking out service to the northern part of the city. The moment of the explosion was captured on amauter video, republished by the local news site Tomsk.ru.
Firefighters and Emergency Situations Service personnel rushed to the scene of the accident, putting out the flames and restoring electricity within two hours. No one was reported injured in the incident. Officials are still investigating the cause of the explosion, though local media sources have blamed the accident on a circuit failure.
Tomsk’s “Vostochnaya” power substation has been in operation since 1963. At the beginning of the year, the city’s population was estimated to be 594,050 people.