Australian bushfire causes statewide blackouts

MELBOURNE, Jan 16 (Reuters) A bushfire and soaring summer temperatures caused major power outages across Australia's southern state of Victoria today, plunging hospitals into darkness and sparking road chaos.

Electricity firms said up to 200,000 customers across the state were affected by blackouts after a bushfire cut power supplies on a day of very high demand for electricity.

Rolling outages were imposed by power firms to spread the load across the state electricity network.

''There are power outages across Victoria from the border with New South Wales state to Melbourne,'' a Victorian police spokesman told Reuters. ''The cause is bushfires and heavy demand. It's a stinking hot day and the demand is overloading transformers.'' The power outages saw traffic lights blacked out around Melbourne, and city offices, hospitals and trains without power.

''We don't know when all the customers will be back on,'' Shannon Walker, a spokesman for energy infrastructure group Alinta, told local media.

''Customers that are out now will be brought back on line but customers who have power may lose power for a while so we can spread the electricity load across the network.'' Australian spot power prices rocketed in Victoria and South Australia states today due to the high demand.

REUTERS BDP BD1347