Russian prosecutors questioned Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy System (UES), over Wednesday's massive power cut hours after the capital city resumed full power supply by nightfall Thursday.

Chubais is being questioned on the "organizational activities that he oversees" and other matters related to the power outage, Sergei Marchenko, spokesman for the Moscow Prosecutor's Office, told reporters.

Before prosecutors summoned Chubais to testify, top Russian leaders had taken a swipe at the electricity boss for mismanagement of his company.

"It is entirely possible to talk about a lack of attention on the part of UES to the current activity of the company," President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday in a televised speech.

"They should work not only on global problems about company policy and its restructuring, but also pay attention to its current activity," Putin said.

Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told a government meeting Thursday he believed the blackout hit the city "largely as a result of the UES' failure to take measures to ensure the dependability of the energy system in the affected regions."

The massive power outage began Wednesday after an explosion andfire at a decades-old substation caused a cascade effect into other parts of the city's grid. Much of the city was paralyzed as 20,000 people were stranded in the subway and traffic light failures triggered a spate of road accidents and snarled traffic late into the evening.

The UES said worn-out equipment might be to blame for the substation blast.

The Moscow mayor's office told Interfax that, as of 5:30 p.m. local time (1330 GMT), power supplies had been fully restored in all apartment buildings, schools, kindergartens and hospitals in Moscow.

Moscow's public transport system, which was brought to a grinding halt by the power cut, resumed full operation by daybreakThursday.

Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said power to railway facilities was also fully restored in the morning and air,water and other means of transport are operating as usual.

The cost of Wednesday's power outage in Moscow and four nearby regions looked set to run into billions of rubles over lost incomeand disrupted services, The Moscow Times reported.

The shutdown of subways and trolley buses forced tens of thousands to reach their destinations on foot or by flagging down crawling vehicles for rides. Managers complained of food spoiling in an unprecedented early summer heatwave, which pushed temperatures as high as 30 degrees Celsius.

The management of a poultry farm outside Moscow told Interfax it lost 611,000 hens "due to the absence of ventilation and water and the high temperature."

Chubais told reporters Thursday his company was ready to compensate for losses incurred by consumers in the power outage ifsuch losses are legally proved.

Source: Xinhua