Transport in Amsterdam and surrounding Netherlands towns has been thrown into chaos by a major power cut.

The outage halted trains and trams and affected flights to Schiphol Airport.

Schiphol said in a tweet that it is running on emergency power but flight schedules have been "seriously disrupted".

Dutch electricity network administrator Tennet said a large part of North Holland province, which is home to some 2.7 million people, was hit by the power cut.

It said the cause was an outage at a high-voltage power station in the town of Diemen, just outside Amsterdam.

The national railway service said no trains are running in and around Amsterdam.

Tennet said it was gradually restoring power to the region.

Schiphol Airport halted all inbound flights and only a limited number of planes were able to leave during the power cut, according to an airport spokeswoman.

Power was later restored and the airport was working to clear the backlog of flights, although it could not say how many services and passengers were affected.

The national railway said no trains were running in and around Amsterdam, and most trams in the city also stopped.

At Amsterdam's Museum Square, firefighters had to free a man, woman and young child in a buggy who were trapped in a lift at an underground supermarket near the Stedelijk and Van Gogh museums.