Blind bat blamed after thousands lose power

ERGON Energy has confirmed what caused a fault that left thousands of Toowoomba residents without power at the weekend.

Dozens of social media reports indicate that residents in Rangeville, Centenary Heights, Newtown, Middle Ridge and Kearneys Spring all experienced a momentary flickering of lights about 8pm on Sunday.

The fault also left 2300 Clifton residents, albeit for a matter of seconds, without power.

The cause: a stray bat.

“A bat has flown into a line near the Westridge Shopping Centre,” Ergon Energy spokesman Rod Rehbein said.

“Some people (nearby) would have seen a blue light almost like a lightning strike out that way and experienced a momentary outage.

“Other residents powered by the South Toowoomba sub station would have noticed their lights dimming without losing power.”

The sub station impacted by the incident supplies power to 25,000 residents across the city.

However, Ergon was unable to confirm how many of its customers experienced the reports of flickering lights at the weekend.

Ergon Energy also reported an outage that left 1245 residents in Gowrie Junction without power on Sunday, though that incident was not related to the stray bat that left residents in the dark.