{"id":693217,"date":"2026-05-25T09:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T09:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/693217\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T09:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T09:24:10","slug":"burst-water-main-triggers-mass-power-outage-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/693217\/","title":{"rendered":"Burst water main triggers mass power outage in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A\ufeff mass power shutdown across <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/melbourne\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Melbourne&#039;s\">Melbourne&#8217;s<\/a> CBD triggered by a burst water main has caused peak-hour chaos in the heart of the city.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>About 10,000 customers in the city&#8217;s south-east were impacted and dozens of traffic lights in the area went dark after the water flooded a carpark on Little Collins Street, a Citipower spokesperson confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>The water entered a substation in the basement, resulting in the power being cut in the CBD for safety reasons.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/54e2523f-4890-41e0-9f0f-5429b3dcb749.png\"   alt=\"Power outage caused by burst water main Melbourne CBD\"\/>The mass power outage caused by a burst water main at a carpark on Little Collins Street. (3aw\/Jacqui Felgate)<\/p>\n<p>Footage shared by 3AW&#8217;s Jacqui Felgate shows the CBD carpark inundated with water.<\/p>\n<p>The site provides power to around 10,000 people in the south-eastern area of Melbourne&#8217;s CBD.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>CitiPower was forced to shut off the grid to assess the damage.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have been able to restore power to more than 4000 customers by redirecting power supply from other parts of the network,&#8221; a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>About 5700 customers were without power as of 5.30pm.<\/p>\n<p>By 7pm, a little under 5000 customers were still offline around the city.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Up to 40 sets of traffic lights across the city centre, East Melbourne and South Yarra were left without power, according to VicTraffic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When traffic lights aren&#8217;t working, you must follow the same rules at an intersection that has a stop or give way sign or line,&#8221; VicTraffic said in a post on X.<\/p>\n<p>Drivers have been warned to stay alert in the impacted suburbs.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Some \ufeffMetro train lines were delayed by the power shut-off.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our crews are on site and working to remove the water so they can safely access the zone substation and assess any damage,&#8221; the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will keep customers updated by SMS and on our website on restoration times.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\ufeff mass power shutdown across Melbourne&#8217;s CBD triggered by a burst water main has caused peak-hour chaos in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-693217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}