Graduation ceremonies were among the events disrupted by a power cut in the city centre.

Preston Guild Hall had to be evacuated after an outage during Tuesday (11 December) lunchtime.

It set fire alarms off at the city’s main venue where hundreds of students were receiving their honours from the University of Central Lancashire.

A spokeswoman for Electricity North West said: “An underground cable fault caused the loss of power to 321 customers in Preston at 12.10pm.

“Engineers quickly arrived onsite and restored power to 93 customers within half an hour and the remaining 228 customers at 1.55pm.

“We would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused and if customers would like any further information they can contact us 24/7 online at www.enwl.co.uk, or on social media, or by calling the free 105 number.”

Read more: General manager Richard Simkin leaves the Guild Hall

A number of shops in Fishergate and the city’s two shopping centres were forced to close for around an hour at lunchtime due to the power failure.

Were you caught up in the power cut? Were you graduating today? Let us know in the comments below