Woman injured after underground explosion at Surfers Paradise
An underground explosion on a busy Gold Coast street injuring a woman is likely to reoccur and potentially kill if funding to maintain the electricity network isn’t boosted, a union warns.
Gold Coast
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A series of underground explosions on a busy stretch of Gold Coast footpath - swallowing a woman in Surfers Paradise - will reoccur and potentially kill if south-east Queensland electricity network maintenance is not boosted, a union claims.
Energex were still investigating on Monday the cause of an underground explosion which collapsed the footpath and injured a young woman on Sunday at the corner of Cavill and Orchid avenues in bustling Surfers Paradise.
The 20-year-old woman sustained minor leg injuries when a shock initial explosion collapsed the Cavill Ave footpath she was walking on, literally swallowing her. She was hauled out of the hole luckily before a fiery second explosion inside the cavity.
Police declared an emergency and public exclusion zone under the Public Safety Preservation Act. It stayed from 6.16pm to just before 8.30pm.
The explosions were outside the convenience store on the Cavill-Orchid Ave party strip corner, but the PSPA extended to The Esplanade, Elkhorn St, Surfers Paradise Boulevard and Cavill Ave.
A Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman said the young woman was taken to hospital in a stable condition.
Superintendent Peter Miles said on Monday it was a miracle no one else was hurt.
“It could have easily turned into a catastrophic event,” he said, adding witnesses reported two or three explosions at 5.20pm.
He said while it was originally suspected a gas leak caused them, Energex now believed it was an electrical fault.
An Energex spokesman said crews worked to isolate affected portions of the network, adding a 4 Orchid Avenue building was the only customer to lose power from 6pm to 10.30pm.
The spokesman said the cause remained unknown, but Energex engineers were working to find out why such a fault occurred.
An Electrical Trades Union statement called for the Australian Energy Regulator to allocate more funding to maintenance of the south-east Queensland network.
ETU assistant state secretary Stuart Traill said a similar incident at Surfers Paradise years ago led to the creation of a maintenance program, which he claimed had still not been completed.
“We have grave concerns because not only was that maintenance work not completed, but there is also further pressure on all programs with the limitations put on our network by the AER,” Mr Traill claimed.
“We’re relieved nobody was more seriously injured on Sunday, and wish the injured pedestrian a quick and full recovery.
“More maintenance needs approved by the State government or people will die. The AER must allocate an appropriate budget for vital works or they will have blood on their hands.”
He claimed in the AER’s draft decision for the Energex electricity distribution determination, there was a 30 per cent reduction in funding allocation for grid maintenance.
It’s understood the decision was not set to be finalised until April 2025, and submissions were open to the public until January 17, 2025.
Mr Traill claimed while the AER was to protect energy customers from price-gouging, it previously failed to allocate enough maintenance funding - and a lot of the Queensland energy network relied on outdated infrastructure which could be catastrophic.
“If you don’t maintain your electricity network, it kills people when it fails,” he said.
Mr Traill said more budget for maintenance might cost more short term but cleaning up the mess after a catastrophic fault or failure would end up costing much more.
He said he was unsurprised there was a fault on Sunday at Surfers Paradise.
“What you always get with heat is people turn their aircons on, so you get a significantly higher load,” he said.
“Wet weather and really hot days - that’s a perfect storm for underground cables to fail.”
He said from what he understood, the first explosion on Sunday collapsed the footpath, injuring the young woman. A subsequent explosion caused a fireball in the cavity after she had managed to get out with help from the public.
He suggested it was not the first time something like this has happened, previously on Ferny Ave at Surfers Paradise in July 2018, and a pit explosion which plunged the Gabba into darkness in March 2023 during a Brisbane Lions game.
The union’s Gold Coast organiser Steve Bravo said visitors should not have to be worried the footpath is going to collapse under them.
“One person falling into a hole in the footpath is bad enough. I can only imagine what could happen if maintenance falls even further behind, here on the Gold Coast and all over Queensland.
“Surfers Paradise gets around four million visitors a year, including Schoolies and families, and in addition to locals. You can only imagine how many people walk along the footpaths every week.”
It’s understood AER has accepted the operating expenditure forecast provided by Energex for 2020 to 2025, covering day today costs to operate and maintain network assets - and while the AER approves an allowance for forecast operating expenditure,Energex is responsible for deciding how and where this expenditure will be incurred.
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Originally published as Woman injured after underground explosion at Surfers Paradise
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