Updated 6.45pm

Power across Malta was restored by around 6pm, after the country suffered a nationwide outage at 2.30pm.

Enemalta said a fault was registered in the interconnector within Sicily's remit, leading to lengthy interruptions in the electricity supply across Malta and Gozo.

It said it appointed an internal inquiry to establish all the facts on the issue, apologised for any inconvenience caused and thanked employees who worked tirelessly to restore the electricity supply in the shortest time possible.

Readers reported power having gone down across Malta as well as Gozo.

The law courts and Mater Dei Hospital were also without electricity for a while, until the generators kicked in.

The outage also caused chaos on the roads as traffic lights were disconnected.

Factories fell silent, with hundreds of workers waiting outside their place of work in industrial estates.

Problems were also caused in the water supply and internet and phone services were limited.

The outage was a source of amusement among Maltese and foreign journalists camped outside the law courts and Auberge de Castille, with many, tongue in cheek wondering whether anyone had switched off the Delimara station following the arrest of Yorgen Fenech, whose company was one of the shareholders in Electrogas, the power station company.