More than 5,200 BC Hydro customers were briefly left in the dark in Victoria Wednesday after a balloon came into contact with power lines.

A large swath of downtown Victoria, Fernwood and Fairfield lost power just after 4 p.m., with some customers in James Bay and Oaklands also affected, according to BC Hydro’s website.

BC Hydro spokesman Ted Olynyk said what appeared to be a mylar balloon came into contact with the lines near Quadra at Yates streets, causing the outage.

The outage specifically affected homes and businesses in the area west of Foul Bay Road, east of Johnson Street, south of Kiwanis Way and north of May Street.

A crew was dispatched to remove the balloon and fix the service interruption and power was restored at around 5:50 p.m.

Victoria police said the outage caused traffic lights to go out along Fort, Quadra and Cook streets, causing heavy congestion.