Malfunctioning underground cables were blamed for a power outage that left about 2,400 Southern California Edison customers in Palm Desert without electricity Wednesday.

The outage happened at 1:58 p.m. and affected 2,390 customers in an area between Country Club and Fred Waring drives from the north and south and Don Miguel Circle and Verde Way from the west and east.

By 3 p.m., service was restored to 2,270 of the customers, SoCal Edison spokeswoman Lauren Bartlett said.

The remaining customers were in the area of Hovley and Arroyo lanes.

Full power was restored at 7:40 p.m.