YEREVAN. – The tunnel—leading to the Yerevan Children's Railway—is completely covered with smoke; cables are burning. Artur Voskanyan, an official from the Rescue Forces Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) of Armenia, told this to reporters in the area.

The tunnel is covered with black smoke, and the latter has covered the entire area.

According to Voskanyan, an inspection is being carried out at the moment. "The source has been found, we are redeploying the forces to put out [the fire]. Probably there was a high voltage, a fire broke out due to the heat. Firefighting works are underway. We will start the extinguishment work in ten minutes. The inspection will come out, will report, we will make a decision. There are 30 cables [there] with a voltage of 6,000 volts," he said, adding that power has been cut in the whole area.

The MES official informed that the report on this smoke was received about 2.5 hours ago.

Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) general director Karen Harutyunyan is also at the scene. He noted that those cables are an alternative source of additional electricity to virtually the entire downtown Yerevan. "But we have an alternative source, and now everyone should have electricity. It was possible to switch to additional source very quickly; there is no need to worry," he added.

But a local resident stated that their power was cut off since 5am and has not been restored yet.