Natural Gas Outage Affects 3,600 In Western Minn.

CYRUS, Minn. (AP) -- About 3,600 CenterPoint Energy customers in west-central Minnesota are without natural gas after a piece of farm equipment hit a gas pipeline near Cyrus.

CenterPoint spokeswoman Becca Virden says Friday's outage affects customers in Benson, Hancock and Morris.

The equipment struck part of the Northern Natural Gas pipeline shortly before 3 p.m., and Northern pipeline crews aren't expected to complete repairs until Saturday morning. After repairs are complete, CenterPoint technicians will go meter to meter to restore service. CenterPoint is asking affected customers to be available when employees arrive to restore service.

Virden tells the St. Cloud Times the gas leak, which happened in a farm field, did not create health or safety issues. There was no evacuation.

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