A major power outage hit Northern Netherlands due to a power grid overload at a high-voltage power station in the town of Diemen, located just outside Amsterdam.
All flights to and from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport were cancelled.or diverted to other regional airports.
According to NL Times, large parts of Noord-Holland and Flevoland is sitting without power. Rail traffic in northern parts of the Netherlands stopped because of the energy cut. Many hospitals are also without power, and the fire department has reports of people stuck in elevators all across the affected areas. In Amsterdam, tram and metro networks are not functioning while the Schiphol Airport was forced to seriously disrupt its flight schedules.
The power outage, started around 09:40 this morning and the Gooi en Vechtstreek police district asked Dutch citizens not to call 112 to avoid overload. Dutch electricity network administrator Tennet said that a large part of North Holland province, which is home to some 2.7 million people, was hit by the power outage. “Once we know the cause, we will be able to say how long it will take to get power supplies back on line,” a spokesman for the company said.
“The power outage is affecting much of Amsterdam Zuidoost, and children are pouring out of the schools”, according to NL Times reporter Marvin Hokstam. “Students are happy, businesses are frustrated.” Police chiefs in Amsterdam say they are putting all their officers on the streets because alarm systems are not working, according to the Dutch website ad.nl.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/major-power-outage-netherlands