Oman's capital Muscat was hit by a power blackout on Monday, among other provinces in the Gulf Arab nation, impacting energy, telecommunications and aviation sectors.

Authorities have yet to give a reason for the outage which the public services authority reported at 15:13 local time, saying the electricity network would be restored within four hours.

It later said power was restored in some areas of the sultanate where temperatures reached a high of 36 degrees Celsius (96.8°F) in Muscat on Monday.

Oman's state energy company OQ said the power outage had led to increase flaring at the Mina Al Fahal and Sohar industrial complexes.

Oman Airports said the electricity outage was expected to impact operators at Muscat International Airport. The telecommunications regulator said services had been affected.

The sultanate, which neighbours Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, has a population of about 5.2 million, according to the World Bank.

(Reporting by Moataz Mohamed, writing by Nayera Abdallah and Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Louise Heavens)