NEWPORT pensioners suffered 15 hours without power after it is believed a digger working on the Southern Distributor Road struck an electricity cable.

The lights went out in houses on Spytty Lane at 9.30am on Saturday and the electricity stayed off during a day of gales and lashing rain.

Engineers from Western Power Distribution finally restored the supply at 12.30am on Sunday, but blamed workmen on the £55m SDR for hitting the cable.

Maurice Gardiner, 66, a retired telecoms engineer, said: "You expect a cut to last an hour or two, but this was atrocious.

"All we got was an answering machine saying power would be back on at noon. Then it was 2pm, then it was 7pm.

"Nobody came to tell us anything. We had no idea what was going on. "I suffer with asthma and I had to go out for the afternoon to find some warmth. I couldn't even get a cup of tea.

"A neighbour is in her eighties, and she had to go and stay with her sister. A couple in their mid-seventies were also hit."

Mr Gardiner claims the cut is the latest in a series of problems caused by the work on the SDR, which is expected to redirect traffic away from New-port city centre when it opens in June.

Mr Gardiner added: "There's digging all around us, and since it started it's been nothing but a nightmare.

"I got paid hundreds of pounds of compensation because of cracks in my home caused by vibrations.

"Water mains have broken and the traffic snarl-ups have been a nonsense."

Paul Bishop, of Western Power Distribution, said: "There was third-party damage to an underground electricity cable.

"It's highly likely the cause was work on the Southern Distributor Road.

"The damage was hard to locate and difficult to resolve. We apologise for any inconvenience."

A spokeswoman for Newport council said the contractors working on the site, Morgan Vinci, were aware of the power cut, but were unsure how it was caused. An investigation is under way.