Swathes of central London were hit by a power cut following a fault.

Around 32 postcodes, including thousands of homes and businesses across east London, were affected by the outage on Monday, according to UK Power Networks (UKPN) which maintains the electricity networks across the capital, the South East, and east of England.

The agency said the outage was caused by a fault with an underground electricity network in the local area.

Pictures on social media showed London Liverpool Street’s departure screens were blank and shops were left in the dark. Offices came to a standstill as wifi was switched off during the power outage and monitors turned black.

The Great Northern line was affected, with trains unable to stop at Essex Road as the platform lighting cut off. The train provider advised people to travel via Old Street or Highbury and Islington to complete their journey, and to allow extra time to arrive at their destinations.

The power cut began around 10.32am, with electricity gradually being restored to parts of London. At least 15 minutes after the outage began, UKPN diverted power to restore electricity to 4,989 homes and businesses before power was restored at 11.08am across all postcodes.

UKPN initially said it believed power would be fully restored between 12pm and 1pm.

Official government guidance for power cuts advises those affected to keep a battery or wind-up torch at home, and a supply of bottled water and non-perishable food that doesn’t need cooking such as ready-to-eat tinned meat, tinned fruit and vegetables, and a can opener.

The government also suggests those eligible sign up for their energy supplier’s priority service register if they need additional support during a power cut.

As internet connectivity and mobile signal can go down during an outage, they advise keeping a battery- or wind-up radio (and spare batteries) at home to communicate by radio during a power cut.

People with personal alarms or equipment that monitors their health, such as diabetes sensors, may also be affected by power cuts. The government advised these people to speak to their device provider or manufacturer to understand how they will function during a power cut.

A UKPN spokesperson said: “We apologise for the inconvenience after a fault developed on our underground network in the Shoreditch area at 10.30am today.

“Power supplies were interrupted to several thousand properties and our engineers worked as quickly as is safely possible to reroute electricity to those affected, in stages, until 11.08am when all were back on supply.”