Key Points
- Crews have been working through the night to clear debris and repair damaged powerlines.
- Early on Thursday morning around 75,000 customers were still waiting for their power to be restored.
- The disaster was one of the largest power outages in Victorian history.
Tens of thousands of Victorians are still without power after destructive storms wreaked havoc on the energy grid.
About 77,000 homes and businesses remained disconnected from the electricity networks as of Thursday morning, down from 125,000 on Wednesday evening and 530,000 at its peak. Of these, more than 72,500 are in the AusNet services area.
"Those numbers should come down quite significantly," AusNet communications general manager Karen Winsbury told ABC radio on Thursday morning. "Hopefully we can have yet another 25,000 on through the course of today."
Crews have been working through the night to clear debris and repair damaged powerlines to try to reconnect the properties in the state's east.
But given the extent of the damage, it could take days or more than a week to restore electricity to those impacted, the Australian Energy Market Operator said.
The main blackout-affected areas are Yarra Ranges, South Gippsland and the Bass Coast.
"We'll have 400 crews on the ground again today, we've been working through the night," AusNet network management executive general manager Steven Neave told Nine's Today show on Thursday.
"It's really clearing that vegetation out of the way, getting safe access to all the streets and suburbs where this storm has gone through and progressively ... restoring supply as safely as we can."
However, some customers may not get their power back until next week.
"We are hoping to have ... the vast majority back on by Saturday," Neave said.
The disaster was one of the largest power outages in Victorian history and could take weeks to fully fix.
The disaster was one of the largest power outages in Victorian history and could take weeks to fully fix.
Victoria's State Emergency Service received more than 3,500 calls for assistance as of Wednesday afternoon, with that number expected to climb.
A dairy farmer was killed after being struck by debris while herding cows on a quad bike in Darlimurla in South Gippsland on Tuesday evening.
Five regional hospitals could remain on generator power for at least three days as authorities rush to prioritise fuel and restore energy to those sites.
Families of young children remain in the dark on whether they can send them to school on Thursday after 80 schools and early learning centres were impacted by outages, with the decision coming on Thursday morning.
Almost 500 phone towers and 450 NBN sites were down on Wednesday, leaving a quarter of a million customers without internet access.
Storm damage that collapsed transmission lines caused the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley to shut down along with several wind farms, which led to the outages.
Dozens of homes confirmed lost in Victorian bushfires
Meanwhile, the extent of the is becoming clearer, with authorities confirming at least 25 home losses.
The State Control Centre has confirmed 24 houses were lost at Pomonal and one at Dadswells Bridge in the Grampians National Park, although damage assessments are continuing.
Grampians Tourism chief executive Marc Sleeman, who was forced to flee his Pomonal property on Tuesday afternoon, estimated the losses equated to about 40 per cent of all homes in his small town.
"When you start counting how many homes are in that small Pomonal pocket, not considering the outer regions, it's a pretty big impact," Sleeman said.
"To have 27 to 30 homes destroyed in one fire in a small community like Pomonal is just a shocking thing to happen."
Watch and act warnings have been downgraded to advice messages for both the fires to the national park's east and north, paving the way for Pomonal and Dadswells Bridge residents to soon return home to survey the damage for themselves.
Almost all fires sparked in Victoria on Tuesday are believed to have been started by lightning strikes as severe storms lashed the state.
