MEXICO CITY - A partial electricity blackout hit three states on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula on Friday afternoon, but power was gradually returning to tourist hot spots Cancun and Tulum a couple of hours after the outages started, authorities and locals said.

"Electricity is gradually coming back, traffic lights at 100 percent," Mara Lezama, the mayor of the Benito Juarez municipality which encompasses Cancun, said on Twitter.

A resident of Tulum confirmed that electricity had returned there.

State-run power utility CFE said that a brushwood fire between transmission towers had caused the power outage.

Power outages had been reported throughout the peninsula, which is dotted with Caribbean coastal resorts.

Places affected included Cancun and Tulum in the state of Quintana Roo, the city of Merida in Yucatan state, and the neighboring state of Campeche, a major oil-producing region.

Reuters