Electric Problem - Short Circuit

The photo shows our main switches in the living room. It doesn't look very clean but that it because the electrician had to pay us a visit at 08.30 in the evening to repair it. What happened?

Around 07.30 in the evening my husband was working on his computer in the living room, the television was running in the back ground and a table lamp was switched on. I was in another room on my computer. A normal evening at home - we thought. Suddenly hubby said there is somthing wrong with the bottom switch it's making strange noises. This switch is for our lamp outside on the porch which is actually very rarely used. I walked to the living room - on the way a flame shot out of the switch and all the lights, the computer, the television died a very quick death.

Not wanting to risk our lives finding out what had happened we decided to call the electrician - they come day and night - but during the day is much cheaper than at night. We checked the fuse cupboard and everything looked fine. In the meanwhile I went back to my computer which was running ok until I realised I had no connection to Internet. Naturally our modem is connected to the electricity in the living room.

Next step - we telephoned the electricity company. The person on the telephone found we should perhaps try to switch the lights on again and have a look at the fuses. My husband told him firmly we were not exactly enthusiastic about this solution and found it would be better when an electrician could call by before something else might happen (visions of headlines in the local newspaper - married couple, 3 cats and son rescued by local fire fighters from their burning home). Eventually it was found that the best solution would be to send someone along. After 5 minutes we recived a telephone call from the electrician asking for directions how to find us. My husband explained the way (we were glad that nothing more started burning in the meanwhile) and five minutes later a young man arrived complete with his case full of instruments for solving our problems.

He wasted no time and removed the cover of the switches to examine the condition of the electrical wiring. One switch was quite blackened by the fusing, the others seemed to be ok. He rewired everything and put the short-circuited switch out of action until the electrician came during the day to fix it up again. Funnily enough the fuses were still ok and still under current, meaning if we had started dealing with the problem ourselves someone might have got electrocuted.

Suddenly it was quite biblical - let there be light and there was light. The television came back to life, the modem was working again (my biggest problem) and my husband's computer had found its way back to the virtual world without any data loss - and I can write my blog again.

Must clean up the switch case tomorrow - looks a bit grimy.