Brimbank blackout affects thousands of homes

Nearly 10,000 Brimbank homes went without power for extended periods of time over the past two days as the region sweltered through a major heatwave.

A Powercor spokesman said a major line went down on Wednesday at 3.58pm, possibly caused by a lightning strike, which shut power off for 79 minutes, effecting about 6000 homes. 

A total of 3052 houses also went without power from 5.15pm on Thursday due to an underground cable fault caused by power use overload. 

A majority of homes had power up and running after an hour. The fault was eventually fixed at 4.06am.