Several neighborhoods around the greater Athens area were plagued by power outages on Thursday, in what was the hottest day of the year so far in the east Mediterranean country.

Outages were reported in a handful of northwest and central districts, main due to excessive demand for electricity and malfunctions in the low voltage grid.

The outage in the west Athens municipality of Peristeri last for as much as four hours, amid temperatures that touched on the 40C-mark.