By The Straits Times | Created at 2025-03-11 03:11:05 | Updated at 2025-03-11 18:53:23
17 hours ago
SYDNEY - Australian utilities raced on March 11 to reconnect more than 120,000 homes and businesses still blacked out by gales and floods that bashed the east coast.
Cyclone Alfred, which hovered just offshore before making landfall as a tropical low on March 8, battered a 400km stretch of coast for five days.
The wild weather claimed one life when a 61-year-old man driving a four-wheel-drive pickup was swept off a bridge into a flooded river on March 7.
The wind and rain have since eased across the coastline straddling Queensland and New South Wales, but swathes of the country remained without power.
In hardest-hit south-east Queensland, where 118,000 properties were still cut off on the morning of March 11, regional provider Energex said it aimed to get 95 per cent of them reconnected by March 14.
“More than 2,000 staff are on the ground again today and the weather is looking good for work and flying our choppers to assess isolated sections of the network,” it said in an update.
Energex said more than 450,000 premises in Queensland lost power during the emergency, a state record for outages caused by a natural disaster.
In north-eastern New South Wales, Essential Energy said 7,600 homes and businesses were still without power.
“It is expected that customers may experience the power going on and off for periods of time as crews work through the faults and damage caused by the high winds, heavy rain, fallen trees and vegetation debris,” the company said. AFP
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