This undated photo shows a view of Taipei 101. (PHOTO / VCG)

Taiwan resumed power early in the evening on Thursday following several hour of phased blackouts islandwide, a problem that briefly impacted major semiconductor firm TSMC.

Around 4 million homes were affected on the island of 24 million people after an outage at a coal- and gas-fired power plant that was connected to a failure of the electricity grid.

Around 4 million homes were affected on the island of 24 million people after an outage at a coal- and gas-fired power plant that was connected to a failure of the electricity grid

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd , said some of its facilities suffered a "brief power dip", but power had been restored. Officials at three major science parks in Hsinchu, Tainan and Taichung, where TSMC and other semiconductor firms all have large operations, told Reuters there was no impact on the operations of the major chipmakers.

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Normal power was restored at 8 pm (1200GMT), electricity provider Taipower said, with supplies having been affected from early afternoon after the the outage at a power plant in the southern port city of Kaohsiung.

Several cities reported blackouts as “cabinet spokesman” Lo Ping-cheng appealed for calm.

The main international airport near Taipei and the high speed rail line were operating normally. Fire officials said they had rescued more than 400 people trapped in elevators, many of them in northern Taiwan. Power went on and off intermittently in central Taipei, though it never totally went out.

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