Progress being made on restoration of power - 10am 6 March 2014

* At 10am approximately 700 customers are without power.

* Customers without power are mostly around Banks Peninsula, although some parts of Christchurch and an area around Southbridge also remain without electricity.

* Flooding, slips and water logged ground in the hills is either preventing access to our network or making repair difficult.

* For safety reasons and to limit damage to assets, we have turned off power to 5 kiosks in Christchurch due to flood waters. The number of customer outages this caused was reduced by our switching of load from others parts of our network to the affected areas. However, around 50 customers remain without power as a result of the need to turn off power to these kiosks. The majority of these are around the Avonside Drive/Linwood Avenue area. These customers will remain without power until flood waters recede and the kiosks can be dried and checked. Given the level of the ground/river around Avonside Drive, it may be that flooding does not recede in time for power to these customers to be restored today.

* It is quite likely that some other individual customers will be without power overnight tonight given access issues and the number of repairs to be undertaken. Our priority is to work on those repairs which impact the most customers first. As the day progresses we will progress to repairs that affect only a few customers at a time. During this stage of the repair effort it is a slow process reducing the number of customers without power as many of the repairs only affect one or a few customers but still take many hours to complete.

* Anyone who sees a fallen power line should stay well clear and call us on 0800 363 9898 immediately.

* We recommend that anyone whose house or business has been flooded to have their electricity wiring checked by a registered electrician. Particularly if flood waters have reached the levels of plugs.

An update on the number of customers without power will be placed on our website, www.oriongroup.co.nz, at midday and again at 2.00pm today.

ENDS

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