this is bbc news i'm lukwesa burak the headlines at four... the energy watchdog demands to know why nearly one million people across england and wales lost power yesterday — national grid says it will learn lessons. what we saw yesterday evening was an exceptionally rare event, one we have not seen since 2008 but we will of course be looking very hard at what happened to make sure we minimise disruption in future. the us financier jeffrey epstein — whose acqauintances included president trump and prince andrew — is found dead in his prison cell in new york while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges. wet and windy conditions cause disruption to travellers, with the west coast mainline hit by flooding. michael gove says there'll be a bail—out fund for businesses hit by brexit.

the family of a 15—year—old girl missing in malaysia thank the search teams who are scouring the jungle for her. we are extremely impressed with the effort, your expertise, your dedication and we hope you find nora. more than a million people are evacuated from their homes as a powerful typhoon hits china. and a woman who was conceived by rape fights to see her father brought to justice, that's in victoria derbyshire: the week in review in half an hour. good afternoon.

the energy regulator is demanding answers from the national grid after a major blackout struck large areas of england and wales yesterday evening. around a million people were affected by the power cut — which led to huge disruption for rail passengers, caused traffic lights to fail and left thousands of homes without electricity. the national grid said the outage was a rare and unusual event caused by the almost simultaneous loss of power at a gas station and an offshore wind farm atjust before five o'clock yesterday. in a statement, rwe, owners of the power station in bedfordshire that failed said a technical issue resulted in a shutdown of the site — in line with what they described as their normal operating practices. meanwhile, the owners of hornsea one wind farm said it was investigating the cause of the loss of power at their site. train passengers were stranded across the network and particularly at king's cross station — with many not getting home until the early hours. simon jones has more.

plunged into darkness. but now the uk's energy regulator is demanding the national grid shed some light on what went wrong. described as an incredibly rare event, but it caused chaos especially on the rail network. this was the message for travellers on a train that finally got into king's cross at two o'clock this morning. for many, it was a waiting game. the power cut off when i was sat in a carriage by myself. and the storm had started outside, so all the rain was coming onto the windows, and it was pitch black. and then we all started to sit together to try and piece together what was going on. because no—one could really understand and the announcements were failing because of the lack of power. and then we all had to walk to the very end of the carriage in the pitch black, going through a tunnel. one of the guards eventually came four and a half hours later to open the train door. and we just jumped out of the train onto the track and walked down the track back to kentish town station.

and some services have continued to face problems with trains out of position. so what went wrong? a gas—fired power station at little barford in bedfordshire failed at liz54pm yesterday afternoon and blamed a technical issue. almost simultaneously the hornsea offshore wind farm in the north sea disconnected from the grid. the power loss was so large that back—up systems kicked in, meaning some demand across the country had to be cut. it affected almost a million customers across england and wales. the national grid says it is working with generators to find out why, admitting many questions need to be answered. we need to do a detailed technical examination of the event, and we will send that report through to ofgem and build that analysis in the coming days and weeks as we review it. then from that, i'm sure we will learn lessons and want to review how this worked to avoid some of those significant impacts in future. the consequences were widespread — some traffic lights went out, newcastle airport experienced power issues,

and at ipswich hospital the back—up generator failed. even once power was restored, many great northern trains remain stuck because the drivers could not restart them and had to wait for specialist engineers. the national grid has ruled out a cyber attack for the failure, but if the regulator is not happy with its explanations, it could be fined 10% of its annual turnover. simon jones, bbc news. services in and out of london's king cross stations were severely disrupted yesterday with some knock on effects today. our reporter greg mckenzie has been there all day talking to passengers. so normal services have resumed here at king's cross this afternoon, and that started about midday, trains got back to normal, on time. however, a few delays for the inbound services. now, a different story last night, of course thousands of people trapped, they couldn't get into the station behind me. police were even called to control the crowds. problems right through to the early

hours, about six or seven day trains were starting to run, albeit with cancellations to services to edinburgh, cambridge, leeds, bradford. but most if not all of those passengers from yesterday have now gone ahead on to their destinations, but many people coming in have said there were problems for them. i have been speaking to passengers all day. since last night at 5:30pm, we were trying to get a train from gainsborough to get to london at king's cross, and we waited for hours. we kept getting, at the last minute, cancellations until last night at 7:30pm, no—one could really tell us which train was going to be on time, how long the power outage was going to be. it was a little scary. we waited almost three hours without getting any notice. we got cancellation, after an hour and a half they told us the train was cancelled. that was very disappointing.

because we did not get any prior notice of anything, and even when we tried calling, we were not getting any answers, so that was very disappointing for us. now, the uk's energy watchdog, ofgem, has requested an urgent report on details about why this happened yesterday, so the national grid are now in the process of compiling a detailed report to determine the exact cause, and the director of operations for the national grid has already said lessons will be learned, and they hope to avoid this happening any time in the future. greg mckenzie at king's cross station, thank you very much. earlier i spoke to tim mcmanan—smith — editor of energyst, a market leading energy magazine — via webcam. i asked him what worried him most about yesterday's power failures.

things do go wrong, you need to fix and if they are out of kilter. it is only two, there are many, many power stations and, you know, if they had lost 5% of capacity, this should be manageable. it is not like half the capacity went and it is total disaster. it should be the sort of thing you are able to cope with, i think. so let's go back to the tripping part of yesterday, was there too much demand or too much capacity, do we know? there was too much capacity, i think... no, the capacity dropped, because it obviously tripped, but that was probably just a technical issue, you cannot say there is too much wind, because rwe was a gas—fired power station. there was an enormous amount of wind in the system, which means

you get a lot less thermal power, so gas and coal, because they have sat back because it is being taken care of by the wind, which means obviously they will not be sitting idling that they can take demand, they can go up and down with frequency as it moves, whereas obviously wind, you are at the mercy of what is happening, so you have to have your own frequency in order to balance the grid. so the gride needs huge amounts of flexibility if they are going to go for enormous amounts of wind power and solar and so on. so it comes across as if the two systems, generation and the national grid, are not communicating properly. i mean, you can see that in the statement from rwe, they said it worked insofar as their systems worked, and it was what happened afterwards, the outage. what concerns you about the resilience of our system? the resilience is connected to this flexibility, you need to be able to ramp up and down levels, make it balance perfectly every second of every day,

you know, all the time. and if it can't be done by the generators that it used to be, you are more relying on renewables, then it has to be done by customers. so there is a thing called demand—side response, where people can turn off their production or refrigeration for 20 minutes or whatever, and they get paid for this. but this is something national grid already do, to balance huge amounts of renewables in the system, we need more of that sort of thing, or a lot more battery storage, but we are talking gigawatts. 0k, thank you very much for that, thank you. 0k, thank you. the us financierjeffrey epstein has been found dead in his manhattan police cell. reports in the new york times says his body was found

early this morning. he was awaiting trial for sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. the 66—year—old had pleaded not guilty to all charges. epstein‘s acquaintances included many of the rich and famous — such as us president donald trump, bill clinton and prince andrew. let's get the latest from our correspondent in washington, chris buckler. many people will be familiar with the story. give us a background, please. yes, jeffrey epstein was a very well—known individual. he was not just someone who very well—known individual. he was notjust someone who during a period in the 1990s and early 2000 attended these parties that were attended by these parties that were attended by the rich and famous, he was someone who organised the parties and indeed hosted them and there are questions about exactly what that meant. there we re about exactly what that meant. there were suggestions he had procured

underage girls and try to force them into having six on a number of occasions with those who attended the parties including prominent politicians and very well—known celebrities, and that has been something that has been investigated for a very long time, a decade ago he was... did plead guilty to offences that involved a state prostitution offence and also involve procuring an underage girl for all those circumstances and that was something that attracted a lot of controversy because the plea deal involved him pleading to one case and it seems a prosecutor was investigating multiple different cases. that is something that has come back to haunt the labour secretary of president trump's administration who was the us a tony formiami who administration who was the us a tony for miami who organised that deal, had to resign from his post recently due to questions about it and that is because, in july, jeffrey due to questions about it and that is because, injuly, jeffrey epstein was charged with a series of six

trafficking offences that date back to the mid—2000 and they involve again underage girls. he had been under lock and key in a manhattan correctional centre and there he was found this morning and i'vejust had a statement handed to me from the bureau of prisons of which they say he was found at 630 am unresponsive in his cell in a special housing unit from what they are describing as an apparent suicide. responding staff for their own visit to the end they requested medical services, life—saving efforts continued and then he was transported to a local hospitalfor then he was transported to a local hospital for treatment for those but he was subsequently pronounced dead by hospital staff. they say in a statement this is now being investigated by the fbi and you can imagine there will be a huge focus on this given the questions about this case and that this was also a

very secure facility and that two or three weeks ago, jeffrey epstein had actually been found unresponsive in his cell on an earlier occasion two or three weeks ago and that, at that stage, it was suggested he would be put onto suicide watch. there are already some public representatives saying we need answers, lots of them, about his death. might make you do ask the question as to whether this will open this case up even wider. he has been connected to a lot of high profile figures, to. us presidents, british royalty. what sort of reaction have they had or given to past allegations of associations with him? many of them have denied any allegations of wrongdoing. in fact, some of them have tried to distance himself from

jeffrey epstein, president trump being one of them who was pictured with him at parties, pictured there standing alongside jeffrey epstein himself appearing to be very friendly and he now says he did not regard him as a friend and he actually tried to distance him self from jeffrey epstein and that is something that is being watched very closely, his relationship with president trump, which has helped make this a huge story in the united states but you're right, he was pictured at these parties held in new york and florida with the likes of prince andrew for example and other very famous people. he was extremely well known. this court case was therefore going to get a huge amount of attention particularly since it did regard parties that he allegedly held in new york and florida. and there will be this concern now that if the court case goes away, what about the information but we are already

seeing some information being revealed from that, for example in a civil suit that is connected but separate from the criminal investigation readers have some court findings only this week in which they talk about a woman suggesting that she was underage, she was trying to be forced by jeffrey epstein into having six with some very prominent individuals, some very prominent individuals, some prominent people. there will be attention on this and while the court case goes away, prosecutors will make clear what information they had and what other avenues of investigation are bullet might potentially boost. there will be a real push on that from some individuals. travellers have been hit by widespread disruption — as rail operators across the country battled hazards caused by wet and windy conditions. these pictures are from the west coast mainline, which was temporarily closed in both directions after five trains became trapped in floodwaters on the tracks between

lockerbie and carlisle. the southbound line has now reopened but with trains subject to severely restricted speed limits. brittany ferries says services between portsmouth and cherbourg have been cancelled. p and 0 is warning passengers to expect delays of up to 2.5 hours on the dover to calais route. and the site of the bristol balloon fiesta — which attracts thousands of people every year — has also been temporarily closed, due to strong winds. michael gove, the cabinet minister in charge of preparing for a possible no—deal brexit, says a support fund for british businesses will help firms to deal with any "bumps in the road". he spoke openly for the first time about what's known as ‘0peration kingfisher‘, while on a visit to northern ireland. meanwhile, as the government ramps up it's no deal planning, a leaked memo from the department for the environment, food and rural affairs, seen by the bbc, claims there's

"a lot of uncertainty" about the uk's capacity to patrol fishing waters after a no—deal brexit. the note says there are just 12 ships "to monitor a space three times the size of the surface area of the uk". a little earlier i spoke to our political correspondent, tony bonsignore — and began by asking him about 0peration kingfisher. we understand it has been planned for a while, it predates borisjohnson becoming prime minister, and we know it will be discussed at a brexit committee in the coming week. what the government says is this — it want to support fundamentally viable companies, it says, who have temporary difficulties, so for example a lack of cash flow in the event of a no—deal brexit. beyond that, lots of questions — how much, what sort of practical help are they going to give, which companies? the times newspaper says a list has already been drawn up of companies that might be helped. and how would you decide what a commercially viable company is?

that is going to be controversial. so there are clearly concerns about the economic effect of a no—deal brexit on a number of companies, but more details we will have to wait for. another aspect of no—deal brexit was highlighted yesterday in these leaked memo, tell us more about that. this was sent out accidentally, can you believe, by a government official? one of the things it talked about was the impact on fishing of a no—deal brexit, because they would be no agreement on the waters around the uk. there was a lot of uncertainty about the uk's ability to patrol its own waters, only 12 ships to police in an area that is three times the surface area of the uk. we have spoken to the government, who say this was just an internal e—mail looking at media stories, they say they are very confident they can patrol the waters, but it suggests potentially a lot of problems after an no—deal brexit, and in the last few minutes we have had a statement from labour, really trying to press the point home, saying this revelation shows the chaos and damage a no—deal

brexit would inflict, they will push the government into better preparations to defend ourfishing industry and make sure others are not allowed to bully their way into our waters. the time is for 20 pm. —— the time is 4:20 pm. the headlines on bbc news... the energy watchdog demands an explanation from national grid after nearly one million people across england and wales lost power on friday — the electricity provider says it will learn lessons from the incident. the us financierjeffrey epstein — whose acqauintances included president trump and prince andrew —

is found dead in his prison cell in new york while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges. michael gove says there will be a government support fund to help british businesses in the event of a no—deal brexit. and in sport, the first saturday of the premier league season is well under way. an emphatic 5—0 wind for the defending champions manchester city in the early match and an early outing for var. in the scottish premiership, celtic are victorious ona premiership, celtic are victorious on a route seven goal thriller against motherwell and ireland co mforta bly against motherwell and ireland comfortably beat italy in their warm up comfortably beat italy in their warm up match but concerns forjerry carbery ahead of the world cup who went off injured. that's it for now, back with more on those stories in the next 30 minutes. the family of a 15—year—old british schoolgirl have made a new appealfor information — after she disappeared whilst on holiday in malaysia, with her famiy. a team of 200 rescuers are scouring the dense forest searching for nora quoirin, who has learning difficulties. howard johnson reports.

it has been a week since their daughter went missing, a teenager with serious learning difficulties who disappeared while on holiday, suspected missing in the jungle. we are extremely impressed with the effort, your expertise, your dedication. and we hope that you find nora, and thank you so much. the malaysian authorities have used drones, sniffer dogs and thermal scanning technology to try to find nora, but in the last few days they've tried a different tact. "nora! nora, darling!" the 15—year—old was born with a condition limiting the development of her brain and that means that she needs help

with simple everyday tasks. the family have stressed that given nora's learning difficulties, it is very unlikely she would have walked off alone. they believed she may have been abducted. but today the police say they are continuing to treat her disappearance as a missing persons case. this is the seventh day of search and rescue efforts. as you can see some commandos here and other search and rescue workers are coming down into this area, around 30 of them exploring an area about a kilometre away from the dusan resort. they're looking in a riverbed to see if there are any signs of nora, traces that might help with this investigation. this time last week nora's family were arriving for a luxury break but today they remain wracked with emotion, not knowing the fate of their much loved daughter. howard johnson, bbc news. pay rates have fallen for millions of lower and middle income earners in the uk over

the past decade according to a report from the trades union congress. the report said austerity and a lack of bargaining rights had held down pay in working and middle class jobs. a treasury spokesperson said it had given the lowest earners a pay rise, and had cut income tax for 32—million people. the tuc has called for more action to be taken. what we are seeing is people seeing real cuts in their pay packets, people in middle earning jobs actually seeing them pay for. that might bejobs in things like construction, may be in local government, if you are doing a more kind of administrative job there, you are likely to have seen your pay go down over this period. and of course that has a real impact on your ability to live, your cost of living, your ability to pay your bills as well. at least 50 people have been killed and many more injured after a fuel tanker exploded in tanzania. the lorry is believed to have exploded in the area of morogoro around 200 kilometres to the west of the capital city dar es salaam. a local police chief said people

were trying to remove fuel from the vehicle when the blast happened. homes and businesses in whaley bridge will be able to access emergency government funding, to cover any losses following the evacuation of the town. £100,000 is being made available to help with any costs not covered by insurance. people were moved from the area last week, amid fears the nearby dam could collapse. the fund is part of a bigger 5 million pound pot for flood—hit communities. north korea has fired two unidentified missiles into the sea ofjapan — its fifth major weapons test in under three weeks. they were fired from near the north—eastern city of hamhung. this latest launch comes just hours after president trump announced he'd received what he called ‘a beautiful letter‘ from kim jong—un. laura bicker has more.

the north korean leader is continuing to test weapons while keeping the door to diplomacy with donald trump open. this latest launch comes just hours after the us president announced he had received a beautiful letter from mr kim. mr trump said the north korean leader was unhappy with south korea and the us carrying out joint military exercises. the us president appeared to side with mr kim and said he was not a fan either. he wasn't happy with the tests, the war games on the other side with the united states, and as you know, i've never liked it either. i've never been a fan you know why? i don't like paying for it! pyongyang sent a series of messages through state media criticising washington for the war games. meanwhile, analysts believe that the recent tests have allowed north korea to prevent a new type of short—range ballistic missile which would be manoeuvrable in the air and test the us and south korean missile defence systems.

police in hong kong have fired tear gas at pro—democracy protestors in the district of tai—wai. police have begun dismantling barricades which were erected by the protestors, in order to halt traffic. some of the demonstrators are wearing helmets and masks, as they await the arrival of riot police. meanwhile, about a thousand protesters are still holding a sit—in at the arrivals hall of hong kong airport. the protests in hong kong are now in their third month. our correspondent, stephen mcdonnel is on the streets following developments. so this is the new tactic on both sides. the police are coming in much quicker to try to capture these protesters, we can see them all running this way. that's because the protesters also have their own new tactic, a hit—and—run type of strategy, where they go somewhere, they'll target the area, they'll spray it, they'll throw things at the police or what have you, and then go very quickly on the other direction because they don't want to get arrested. and here we have the police forming up on this side as well, so it's not good enough any more for the police just

to secure the area, they want to catch protesters. but by the same token, the protesters also don't want to stand there and have pitched battles with the police, because what they want to do is not be arrested and live to campaign another day, if i can put it to you that way. richard braine has been elected as the the new leader of ukip. mr braine, the party's west london chairman, took 53% of the vote in a ballot of members. he was the favoured candidate of former leader gerard batten, who stood down after the party was wiped out in the european elections and was then barred from standing again by ukip's national executive committee.

the environment agency has said it was carrying out tests on part of the river froom after it was turned bright blue by a mystery substance. it has been treated as a pollution incident. currently there are no reports of dead wildlife. a rare set of twin pandas have been born at a zoo in belgium. here they are. they've been described as looking like little "pink shrimps" and are completely hairless. twin pandas are extremely rare — and usually one of them won't survive — but keepers say the boy and girl are doing well. mum, ‘how how', is said to be showing a "very strong protective instinct" — she's 900 times bigger than they are. now it's time for a look at the weather with helen. hello. it has felt more like autumn and

august today. the winds will be with us for a few hours yet, as will the gales around the coast. heavy downpours as well have been rattling through quite quickly in the south but they are moving further north so much so we have had reports of surface water flooding. this much so we have had reports of surface waterflooding. this rain just continues particularly for northern ireland, parts of northern england but also increasingly so for scotla nd england but also increasingly so for scotland as well and that amount of rainfall, 60—80 millimetres could well lead to further flooding as it is continuing through the night hence there is a warning for that rain. the whimsically start to ease through the night, should be lighter tomorrow. a chance of heavier downpours, thundery rain as well tomorrow. that was some wet weather forecast for parts of scotland and northern england, that is a real cause for concern. as ever, the running details are on the website. hello this is bbc news with lu kwesa burak. the headlines: