By NNN-Xinhua,
Sydney : Around 127,000 flood-affected residents in Australian state of Queensland are without power and many will possibly stay powerless before the weekend, said Queensland electricity supplier Energex on Wednesday.
Energex began cutting power on Wednesday morning to homes and businesses in the Central Business District (CBD) in the state capital of Brisbane.
A number of buildings in the city’s suburbs are also currently without power, as are residents in the nearby city of Ipswich.
Homes in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, which was inundated by floodwaters earlier in the week, are also still without electricity.
Energex spokesman Bill Lyon said it was highly unlikely that most buildings would be reconnected before the weekend.
“We’re not expecting to have power back on to the vast majority of the people until at least the 12 to 14 hours after the flood water goes down, so that’s probably another two to three days,” he told Australia’s TV Sky News channel on Wednesday afternoon.
“The reason we’ve been switching off the power is to get as much of our equipment up out of the water, similar to the householders, so that when we go back in there we don’t have to get a whole heap of new gear in there because that would be expensive, and (lead to) delays of weeks.”
Lyon said all Energex crews were mobilized and that they would be installing generators in parts of the CBD over the next few days.