Power outage affects thousands in Torquay

POWERCOR is “working around the clock” to restore power to 300 homes and businesses in Torquay following two separate cable failures, but it is not yet clear what caused the faults.

The first fault occurred just after 5pm yesterday (Monday, January 11) and affected about 5,000 customers. Power was restored to 2,000 customers within minutes, and to most of the remaining customers by 9pm.

The second fault occurred just after 2.30am today (Tuesday, January 12) and affected about 3,000 customers. Most of these had their power restored by 4.33am, but the remaining 300 homes and businesses have been without power since then.

“Powercor crews have been working around the clock to restore power to customers in Torquay after two separate cable faults occurred overnight,” a Powercor spokesperson said.

“We expect all customers to have power restored by the early evening and will continue keeping customers updated by SMS alerts, on our website or through our customer centre.

“We understand how difficult it is to be without power, particularly for such a long period of time and when so many people are enjoying their holidays. We thank our customers for their patience as our crews work to safely complete these repairs.

“While our priority is always to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible, we will also investigate to identify what caused these cables to fail.

“Extreme conditions including heat, storms and strong winds can lead to power outages and that’s why we always encourage customers to be prepared.”