Hundreds of schoolchildren had an unexpected day off in Powys today after power failures closed three schools and affected dozens of homes and businesses.

Giant hailstones, sleet, rain and gale force winds were battering the whole of Mid Wales, with the Radnor and Shropshire border particularly badly affected early today.

In Knighton, journeys to school were hit by huge hailstones and high winds, while in nearby Presteigne pupils arriving at both the primary and high schools were turned back because of power cuts affecting much of the town.

Whitton Primary School was also closed.

A spokeswoman for John Beddows High School said: “When we arrived at school the electricity was off and we were told it could be off for several hours.

“We had no choice but to turn the buses around as soon as they arrived, because we couldn’t open the school to more than 500 children without electricity for health and safety reasons.”

Power was restored shortly before 10am, although the school remain-ed closed for the day.

Presteigne and Whitton primary schools were affected in the same way.

A spokesman for Central Networks said engineers believed the problem was weather-related, but could not confirm that or how many customers had been affected because their own computer system was down.

“We believe the weather in that part of Powys is particularly bad,” he said.

Power cuts also affected almost 400 homes in the Old Radnor area of Powys when a branch fell across an electricity line.

Karen Walsh, for Western Power Distribution, said: “Power was off from just before 9am, but we had it restored in just under an hour. A branch had fallen on a cable that supplied power to 370 homes in the Old Radnor area.”

She said despite the high winds engineers had a relatively quiet night. But with heavy snow forecast for tomorrow across much of Wales and the border country, residents are braced for more problems.

The levels of rivers which caused widespread flooding problems across Mid Wales, were beginning to rise again.

By Deborah Knox