EMERGENCY services in Andover were faced with a crisis of their own on Thursday night when BT's telecommunications services experienced a 'massive power failure', throwing the whole of the south into chaos.

Tens of thousands of telephones across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and parts of Wiltshire went dead around 6.30pm when the power supply to a communications centre in Southampton crashed out of action.

Police, fire and ambulance crews were unable to access vital lines of communication, leaving the 999 service and all police stations unobtainable.

Calls were diverted to Dorset police and at one point, it is understood that the Dorset force could only communicate using e-mails.

Inspector Andy Jennings, of Andover police, said the station created its own control room at Andover which was manned by staff with just one mobile phone.

All available officers were put out on patrol so that members of the public could flag them down and report any situation and the police station remained open throughout the night.

Stations at Stockbridge and Weyhill also remained open.

Insp Jennings added: "We called in extra police officers from the night shift and passed our own police radios to the fire and ambulance service so that we could speak to each other directly. Our local radios were working so we could talk to other officers."

Once officers in Andover discovered their calls were being diverted to Dorset they made contact and gave their mobile phone number for any incidents. All services were resumed around 11.30pm.

Insp Jennings said: "As far as Andover was concerned we did not miss any major incidents that we would have responded to and we did not have a flurry of calls the following morning.

"We have had a review of things and we feel that under very trying circumstances the plans worked pretty smoothly and we minimised the danger and inconvenience to the public."

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service also put all of its 34 retained stations across the county on standby and drafted in an extra 20 officers to its headquarters.

Spokesman Dave Askew said a pre-arranged emergency plan came into force as soon as the problems started.

At Andover, fire crews were on standby but did not have any calls.

Police chiefs have been in talks with telecommunication experts after the 999 backup facility at Netley failed to activate as expected.

Wiltshire Police meanwhile said procedures were in place to deal with the events. All police patrols were informed and high visibility patrols were carried out.