AMSTERDAM.- Power was gradually being restored Friday after Amsterdam's bustling city centre was hit by a major outage, closing down museums and stopping trams, the city's electricity network provider said.

By late afternoon, some 10,000 households out of a total of 28,000 were reconnected but "it was not possible to say when all power will be restored," the Liander company said in a statement.

Amsterdam's local news channel AT5 reported that it still could take all night to restore power in the Dutch capital.

The city centre "experienced a large power cut around 11.00 am (1000 GMT) after an electricity cable was cut during excavations" just south of Amsterdam's historical canal belt, Liander earlier announced.

Amsterdam's famous Rijksmuseum was evacuated and remained closed together with the nearby Allard Pierson Museum, news reports added.

Elsewhere on the city's famous Museum Square, the Van Gogh and Stedelijk Museum of modern art however remained open to the public, Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported.

Bystanders at the Rijksmuseum earlier posted images on Twitter of a heavy police presence at the museum, which has priceless artworks such as Rembrandt's famous 17th century painting The Night Watch.

Elsewhere, pedestrians tweeted pictures of lines of stationary Amsterdam trams with one person saying "Line of trams from the Spui to Dam Square... no ordinary sight."

Many shops have also closed up and those open were only doing cash transactions, the NOS added.

The Dutch capital attracts some 17 million tourists per year and many of them visit Amsterdam's central and historic canal belt and famous red-light district.


© Agence France-Presse