POWERCOR crews were left working to restore power for 24,000 customers across central and western Victoria on Tuesday afternoon, with parts of Hamilton affected after storms swept across the state.

“Thunderstorms brought down trees and caused damage to parts of the network, while lightning also impacted electricity infrastructure,” a Powercor spokesperson said.

Areas impacted included most of east Hamilton extending out to Dunkeld with 2100 residence and business customers affected.

Ballarat and surrounding communities were the hardest hit areas, with around 13,000 customers without power.

Power supply was interrupted twice, however, Powercor crews worked to have power restored throughout the afternoon and evening.

Customers were updated via SMS and Powercor’s outage map.

Powercor thanked all impacted customers for their patience and gave assurances it was their priority to restore power quickly, particularly to critical businesses and infrastructure.