THOUSANDS of homes which were without power last night found themselves in the dark again this morning.

Six thousand customers of Aquila Networks in Bromsgrove and the surrounding villages lost power at 10.30pm yesterday.

Although power was restored by about 2.3am today, another 4,361 customers lost power again at 7.30am.

"As far as we can determine the two faults are entirely unconnected, although a lot of the same customers may have had cuts in the supply," said Nigel Birchley, emergency media liaison officer for Aquila.

In both incidents the fault had come from underground cable.

"We are trying to get everyone back on and repair the cable," said Mr Birchley.

He said the company did not know what had caused the fault, but said power should have been fully restored by 11am today.