PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):

The Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) has blamed thieves for the electricity outage that plunged parts of the capital into darkness on Monday.

It said that the thieves had attempted to cut away "a portion of one of our main 33 kV underground cables", triggering the outages that severely disrupted commercial activities in Port-of-Spain and also disrupted the supply to various homes.

The company said that while it was seeking to rectify the situation "in the shortest of time", in the interim, customers were being urged to conserve electricity to limit any load shedding.

T&TEC said it was also urging the public to report any incidents of tampering of its infrastructure to the nearest police station. It said persons tampering with electrical infrastructure were putting themselves at great risk, even loss of life, and severely hampered its ability to supply electricity to customers.

"The stealing of cable is against the law and punishable by a fine or imprisonment," the company said in a statement