Power is back in Moreton Bay Region

Energex says all customers in the Moreton Bay Region have now had power restored after widespread outages hit large parts of Queensland this afternoon.

The company's figures at 4pm showed just 61 customers across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Somerset region were still without electricity following an incident at Callide Power Station.

Turbine fire

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said at 3.45pm today: "Multiple Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) crews are currently on scene at a generator turbine fire at the Callide C Power Station.

"An evacuation of the power station has been completed and a 550m exclusion zone has been setup while firefighting operations take place. Power to the station has been isolated."

Power-ing back

At one stage 15,525 customers in the Moreton Bay Region were impacted by the power failure early this afternoon - but that figure started falling quickly.

By mid-afternoon figures showed 4666 are without power: 1779 in Kallangur, 1651 in Dakabin, 1079 in Narangba, 58 at Moorina, 50 in Morayfield, 45 at Kallangur, 3 in North Lakes and 1 in Deception Bay.

At that time, across South East Queensland, that figure stood at 9489.

Turbine fire

CS Energy which runs the Callide Power Station said: "At approximately 1.45pm today, a fire occurred in one of the turbine halls at the power station. 

"As a result, the three units that were generating at the time went offline. We immediately evacuated the power station and called emergency services to attend site. 

"At this stage, there are no reported injuries. We are investigating the incident and will provide further updates as they become available."

Power back on

Around an hour after first reports of power outages, Energex said supplies had been restored to about 250,000 customers.

"A quarter of a million Qld customers affected by this afternoon’s mass outage have now been restored," says Energex.

"We’re advised that the power outage, still affecting tens of thousands of Qlders, is due to a loss of generation at a power station. 

"We are working with agencies and the station operators, and we have all hands on deck working to restore supply to our network as soon as power is available. 

"Our contact centre and websites are under enormous pressure – pls contact 000 for life-threatening power issues, and we’ll provide more info when possible. Thank you."

Rail services

Trains are not being affected by today's massive power failure which hit parts of Queensland, including the Moreton Bay Region.

Translink told Moreton Daily: "There are no service impacts due to the power outage at this time."

There were however reports of traffic lights being impacted in Brisbane and it may impact the commute home this evening.

Without power

Hundreds of thousands of people and properties across the Moreton Bay Region were reportedly without power this afternoon.

Many were linking the power failure to an incident - or incidents - around 2pm today at the electricity generating Callide Power Station at Biloela.

Reports at the time said Queensland Fire and Emergency Service was responding to a turbine fire at the power station.

It was reported to be impacting power supplies in an huge swathe of the state from the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Moreton Bay Region right up to Cairns.

Widespread outage

Energex first said on its Facebook page: “A widespread outage from the Gold Coast to Caboolture is affecting 375,000 customers.

“Cause unknown and duration - we are investigating urgently. When we know more, we will update this page.

“Please assist by only contacting us for life-threatening issues, as our teams don’t have any additional info at this time.”

Reports were that people from the Gold Coast to Caboolture are being impacted by the power problems.

There's more news here