Curiosity killed the cat... and cut power to 10,000

A curious cat is to blame for a power outage that affected almost 10,000 customers last night.

Power was cut to customers in Tauranga just before 7:20pm after a cat climbed onto an outdoor electrical switchgear at the Otumoetai substation.

Powerco acting network operations manager Dean Stevenson said the power was restored an hour later.

He said the outage affected the Greerton, Otumoetai, Matua and Bethlehem areas.

The cat did not survive.