At least one person was taken to hospital following a power outage in the Sydney CBD on Thursday that stalled lifts, triggered evacuations and caused commuter chaos.
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Westfield Sydney evacuated staff and thousands of shoppers at lunchtime for "safety and security reasons", a spokeswoman said, about three hours after the mass blackout between King and Goulburn streets occurred.
About 1.45pm, a man was rescued from a lift stuck near level four of the Westfield Sydney tower, a NSW Police spokesman said. The Sydney Tower Eye closed for the day.
He was among at six people freed from stalled lifts in five separate rescues across the CBD, a Fire and Rescue NSW spokesman said.
Earlier, a woman in her 20s, trapped in an elevator in a Pitt Street building, was rescued and taken to Sydney Hospital.
She is in a stable condition, an Ambulance NSW spokeswoman said. "She suffered from dizziness and was a bit overwhelmed."
Court proceedings for alleged terrorism plotters Omar al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 26 at Sydney's Central Local Court were delayed.
Ausgrid detected faults in two of the three 11,000-volt cables supplying power to a large swathe of the CBD and decided to cut all power at 9.50am to avoid an electrical overload.
About 1100 homes and businesses were affected. An hour later, emergency crews restored supply via the third cable using an alternative part of the network.
At 1.20pm, the electricity supplier said all power had been restored.
"The load was going to creep up as airconditioners and lifts start to work harder, taking power use to levels beyond what's considered safe," Ausgrid spokesman Anthony O'Brien said.
"The prudent thing to do was to interrupt the power to avoid larger damage."
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission and National Association of Community Legal Centres were among those tweeting about being evacuated because of the outage.
Russell Zimmerman, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, said a lunchtime shopping centre exodus could potentially wipe 60 per cent of a retailer's earnings on a regular weekday.
"In the city, obviously, the bulk of the trade would happen between 11.30am and mid-afternoon, that's a large part of the trade. It's a huge impact. We feel for them," he said.
"That said, the retailers couldn't operate in any case, because the eftpos machines wouldn't have worked, no lighting, limited security."
Inspector Peter Vromans from Sydney City Local Area Command said traffic lights at four intersections stopped working, "moderately disrupting" motorists and pedestrians.
In the morning, buses were delayed up to 10 minutes and, in the afternoon, route 339 buses were being diverted away from Pitt Street, missing one stop.