Power outage in Prague halts transport, firefighters respond to people trapped in elevators

A power outage around midday today brought trams and metro lines A, B and C to a halt across most of Prague, the city’s public transport operator said on its website. The outage affects the right-bank part of the capital. Information on Czech Railways’ website shows that trains are also not running between Prague and Kolín, between Prague and Benešov, and between Kolín and Kutná Hora. According to Prague Energy (PRE), the cause is an outage at ČEPS’s Chodov substation, and technicians are working to repair it.

Firefighters are responding to a large number of people trapped in elevators across most of Prague because of the extensive power outage, spokesman Miroslav Řezáč said. They have also received numerous reports of smoke in buildings caused by diesel generators switching on.

“We currently have a huge number of incidents that we’re responding to across Prague for these very reasons,” the firefighters’ spokesman said.

According to CTK reporters, this is a widespread outage: trams, the metro and trains are not running, and the metro concourses are only dimly lit. Businesses in central Prague have also closed, and ATMs are out of service.

Amper Meteo, a company that has long analysed energy data, said the load on the grid had suddenly fallen by 30 percent. “Blackout in Prague; we have no further information yet. But the system imbalance also plunged (-850 MWh), only to shoot up shortly afterwards (+1500 MWh),” it wrote on X.

The transport operator said passengers in Prague should expect disruption to both the metro and tram lines 2 to 26, as well as trolleybus number 58. It has not yet said when services are expected to resume.