Jakarta: Electricity was on Monday morning beginning to return to parts of Jakarta, more than eight hours after a massive power failure hit the Indonesian capital and surrounding cities, potentially affecting more than 30 million people.

Traffic jams in Jakarta as a power failure causes chaos. Credit:James Massola

But large sections of the capital remained in darkness into the morning – as did some nearby cities – as authorities scrambled to restore electricity services.

In some areas of south, east and west Jakarta, power returned for two or three hours from 8pm before shutting down again after 11pm.

The state electricity company PLN has said it hoped to restore power by midnight but that did not look likely.