Toronto suffers large power outage

A power outage left large swaths of Toronto in the dark amid an East Coast heat wave.

A fire at a transformer station in Canada's largest city caused the outage late on Monday afternoon. Ontario electric company Hydro One said that about 240, 000 customers were affected, and that the cause is under investigation.

The outage occurred as Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip are visiting. Prince Philip was presenting the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, part of a program that encourages youth to participate in community service, when the lights went out at the Royal York Hotel. He continued presenting the awards in a dimly lit room.

Full power was restored by about 8:30 p.m. EST (0300 GMT), just before a dinner with the queen, Prince Philip and Canada's prime minister was scheduled to start.