BERLIN: Power cuts temporarily plunged homes in some of the most heavily populated areas of Germany and France as well as parts of Belgium into darkness overnight due to output shortages, authorities said on Sunday.   
 
A spokesman for a French union said the outage was the worst to hit France in 30 years, while at least five German federal states -- accounting for more than half the country's 82 million inhabitants -- were also affected, causing delays to trains.   
 
French radio said the power outage, which also hit parts of Paris, originated on the German side following a surge in demand for electricity due to cold weather, and that parts of Belgium and Italy were affected.   
 
A spokesman for German utility RWE Rhein Ruhr said the cuts were caused by a failure outside his firm's network.   
 
“Not enough power was being generated in the network,” he said, adding that because the supply was on a shared network, the power cuts spilled over into other areas.
 
He said it was not clear where exactly the failure had occurred.