Captain Abdul Rahman Al-Amri, deputy spokesman of the Civil Defense in the Makkah province, said a wall surrounding the plant collapsed as a result of the explosion, which took place at 5:45 p.m. on Monday.

He said the department was able to restore power within four hours at 9:28 pm. Nobody was injured in the explosion. The department has launched an investigation into the incident.

Abdul Qader Tankal, supervisor for safety at the university, told Arab News that KAU evacuated many students and suspended a number of lectures as a result of the explosion and outage. He said there was no power in many university buildings.