<p>The Auckland Emergency Coordination Centre remains activated in response to power outages in parts of Auckland.

Vector advise that approximately 18,000 customers remain without power this morning. Customers are mainly located in parts of Remuera, Saint Johns/Meadowbank, Mount Wellington, Sylvia Park and a small part of St Heliers. Vector request that customers in the east Auckland isthmus limit power usage so that more customers can be reconnected with back feeding. Vector worked through the night on affected cables and will have more certainty of actual restoration times later today.

Nine intersections remain without power across Auckland, four of these are presently manned by NZ Police for traffic control. Bus and rail services are running without disruption.

A number of cell sites are still down due to the power outage. Spark has 17 cell sites down as of 0900 hours but expect the majority of these to be running by 1300 hours. Vodafone have 19 cell sites down.

All hospitals are now on mains power. St John are working with individuals in the affected area that rely on medical alarms. Health services also have coordinated residential care teams working in affected areas to help vulnerable persons.

As some areas of Auckland continue to wait for power to be restored, there are health concerns over food premises and residents using food that may be spoiled.

Westerly winds are expected to be gusty in Auckland later today. Between 11am and 6pm, MetService expect that winds in exposed parts of the region could gust up to 100 km/hr. These winds are not expected to cause widespread damage but very localised power outages and trees down could occur during the afternoon.</p>