Power has been restored to more than 200,000 homes after a blackout last night.

The mass power outage affected around 205,000 homes across the Highlands and Islands and into Moray.

Customers first reported problems at 8.30pm last night.

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Power Distribution said it was working to identify the fault and restore power as quickly as possible.

By 10.30pm 95,000 customers were without power and this dropped to 25,000 by 11pm.

By half past midnight power was fully restored to all customers across the region.

Alex Salmond chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee (SGoRR) last night, which is activated in the event of widespread or complex emergencies.

Speaking just after midnight he said: "Earlier this evening I chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee where it was made clear the network operator was working quickly to restore power to all affected homes.

"I welcome the news that action has now been completed tonight."