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Balloons caught on power line cause outage in dozens of Kalgoorlie-Boulder homes

Anneke de BoerKalgoorlie Miner
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A bunch of balloons caught on a power line has caused another blackout in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
Camera IconA bunch of balloons caught on a power line has caused another blackout in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Credit: Supplied

A wayward bunch of balloons caught on a power line have caused dozens of Kalgoorlie-Boulder locals to lose power to their homes.

The bizarre outage in South Kalgoorlie started about 3.15pm on Tuesday afternoon, and an image of blue balloons hanging from power lines then surfaced on a community social media page.

A Western Power spokesperson confirmed the balloons were the culprit in a statement revealing about 76 customers were affected by the outage.

While initial estimates suggested power would be restored by 8.30pm, the spokesperson said crews worked “quickly and safely” to restore power to all customers by about 4.35pm.

In the last year alone Kalgoorlie-Boulder has endured multiple outages, with this short outage coming less than a month after a blackout lasting several hours struck 16,400 homes and businesses in the region.

The worst was a multi-day blackout in January when the region lost power as temperatures soared to about 40C.

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