Biel was hit by a grossflächiger power outage on Friday morning after a fire at Unterwerk Mett briefly cut electricity to the city. ESB said a defect at the substation was reported around 6.40 a.m., and the smoke that followed affected the whole feed into Biel.

That is why the outage drew attention immediately: it landed at the start of the day, when homes, transport and business systems were switching on at once. Alertswiss warned that there could be disruptions to telephone and data services, even as it said there was no danger and no special action was needed from the public.

ESB, the utility that supplies Biel and the surrounding region, said its service team was working to fix the fault. In its media statement, the company said the fire at Unterwerk Mett caused a brief interruption to the electricity supply of the whole city, and that no one was injured.

The two alerts did not describe the scale in the same way. Alertswiss said the outage covered the whole city and that its cause and duration were still unknown, while ESB spoke of an outage in parts of Biel. At the same time, ESB’s own wording said the smoke from the defect had repercussions on the entire feed into the city, and that a large part of Biel was already back on the grid by Friday morning.

The impact was visible beyond the socket. A news scout said nearby homes were dark, trolleybuses were running on diesel and bus connection displays were not working. “For the coffee with my wife there was still enough time, then suddenly the power was gone,” the witness said, adding that the electricity later came back at home. A video from the area showed firefighters at an ESB building, underscoring how quickly a technical fault became a citywide service problem.

What still was not clear on Friday was how long the blackout lasted in full and when supply was restored everywhere. ESB said work was under way to resolve the disruption, but it did not give a time for complete recovery. For Biel, the immediate question was answered quickly: the city had lost power after a fire in the Mett substation, and the grid was already recovering before the morning was over.