Item 1 of 4 A bartender works in a bar during a city-wide power outage that local utility provider Nukissiorfiit said was caused by an accident, in Nuuk, Greenland, January 24, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica

[1/4]A bartender works in a bar during a city-wide power outage that local utility provider Nukissiorfiit said was caused by an accident, in Nuuk, Greenland, January 24, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

NUUK, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Greenland’s capital restored power early on Sunday after a storm damaged a transmission cable and left thousands without electricity and heating through the cold winter night.

Electricity suddenly cut off across Nuuk late on Saturday, witnesses said.

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The Nukissiorfiit utility – which supplies Nuuk from the Buksefjord hydropower plant southeast of the capital – said power came back online around 4:30 a.m. (0630 GMT).

Greenlanders are used to outages, often caused by harsh weather damaging the cable which runs through rugged terrain and spans two fjords.

Three days before the power cut, the government updated recommendations for crisis preparedness – including advice for people to keep five days’ worth of water and food – in the wake of tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’sdemands to acquire the Danish territory.

Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Heavens

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Based in Copenhagen, Jacob oversees reporting from Denmark, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. He specializes in security and geopolitics in the Arctic and Baltic Sea regions, as well as large corporates such as obesity drug maker Novo Nordisk, brewer Carlsberg and shipping group Maersk.
Before moving to Copenhagen in 2016, Jacob spent seven years in Moscow covering Russia’s oil and gas industry for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal, followed by four years in Singapore covering energy markets for WSJ and Reuters.