THERE was chaos across Melbourne as major power outages added to pain felt by a train derailment on the Frankston line early today.
Blackouts were being reported across the city with 150 calls to 000 in the last hour as people report outrages in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs as far as Kew and down to Brighton and South Eastern suburbs.
Lights are also out on the Nepean Highway and police are warning drivers to take extra care on the roads. SP Ausnet is believed to be the provider responsible for the affected areas.
A VicRoads website said: ‘’Due to a major power outage across several eastern suburbs approximately 50 sets of traffic lights are blacked out.Emergency services are working on the problem.Drivers are advised to approach intersections with care.’’
Citipower told 3AW a Springvale transmission tower that lost supply is the cause of extensive blackouts across eastern and south-eastern Melbourne.
United Energy said more than 100,000 of its customers had been affected in an expanse of suburbs between Cheltenham in the south to Burwood in the east.
Other suburbs hit included Surrey Hills, Camberwell, Brighton, Mordialloc Beaumaris, Highett and Clayton.
United was the hardest hit of the suppliers and said power was down for about 40 minutes.
“As at now, 10 past six, all customers are back on supply,” a United Energy spokesman said.
The problem started with an SP Ausnet terminal statio
Source: Heraldsun