an underground cable failure knocked out power from St. George's to Southampton.

The failure -- in the subterranean power network that transmits electricity from the Bermuda Electric Light Company's main power station to individual transmission stations across the Island -- was undetected as of 10.30 p.m.

last night, Belco spokeswoman Ms Linda Smith told The Royal Gazette .

But she said most of the affected areas -- including parts of Southampton, Paget, Devonshire and St. George's -- would have had their power restored by midnight.

Some areas of the Island had gone without power for as much as four hours.

Power at the Civil Air Terminal, which had also been hit by the outage, had been restored earlier in the evening so the scheduled American Airlines flight from New York could land safely.

The airplane touched down at 10.45 p.m.

"They (the Civil Air Terminal) were given a priority,'' said Ms Smith, who added: "What we're doing is feeding the power back to the affected areas on a gradual basis. We should find the cable fault through the process of elimination.'' Despite the high winds and rain that swept through Bermuda yesterday, Ms Smith said she did not think the cause of the fault was weather-related.

The inclement weather did result, however, in two earlier outages during the day.

At around 2.53 p.m., Ms Smith said, power was disrupted in the Middle Road area of Warwick after a tree branch fell on a power line. It was eventually restored at around 3.30 p.m.

And a toppled tree also damaged wires outside the Donut House restaurant in Hamilton, affecting the vicinity of Woodlands Road, Dundonald Street, Laffan Street and Euclid Avenue.

Power was restored in that area at around 4.06 p.m.

Although the Weather Office at the US Naval Air Station cancelled a gale advisory yesterday evening, a spokesman said that a small craft warning would remain in effect until 11 a.m. tomorrow.

The spokesman warned that winds of approximately 15 to 20 knots would sweep across Bermuda this morning after dying down to between 10 and 15 knots last night.

The Island saw gusts of up to 40 knots at the height of yesterday's windstorm, he added.

Fire Services reported no damage or flooding as a result of the weather.