Electricity returns to Russian naval base town after days-long winter outages

Power was restored on Tuesday to the home town of Russia's main naval base after four days of blackouts caused by the collapse of ageing power lines during bad winter weather, the regional governor said.

The closed town of Severomorsk, the headquarters of Russia's Northern Fleet on the Barents Sea's Kola Bay, is home to Russia's most important naval command. It controls Russia's biggest fleet of ballistic missile submarines and extensive arsenals of nuclear warheads, missiles and repair yards.

Andrei Chibis, the governor of the wider Murmansk region, said on Tuesday that power had been restored to Severomorsk. Electricity supplies were cut to the northern city of Murmansk and Severomorsk on January 23.

Five pylons, two of them almost 60 years old, collapsed about seven kilometres (four miles) from Murmansk on January 23, according to local media. Two dated from 1966, two from 1982, and one from 1988, according to the Severomorsk online news site.

Russia's so-called "closed towns," usually around major defence or nuclear installations, have much stricter controls than most other places. Entry is controlled and special permissions are needed to visit.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge Editing by Andrew Osborn)