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On the morning of 22 November 2012 at approximately 4.35am a fire started in the vicinity of the Maintenance Control Room at Telstra’s Warrnambool Telephone Exchange building in Victoria. The fire caused significant damage to the ceiling, roof, cable trays and cables and the Maintenance Control Room. The fire completely destroyed the cables that connected the Telephony and Broadband Communications Equipment to the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) and other internal building cables connecting this site to the remainder of the Telstra Network.
The resulting smoke, soot and heat directly affected most, if not all, of the equipment in the Exchange building. Action was taken by the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and the local electricity distributor Powercor to completely disconnect mains electricity, shut down the stand-by generator set and isolate the battery supply to ensure the fire was safely addressed.
As a result, the entire site was incapacitated, which resulted in all telecommunications services supplied by Telstra for Warrnambool and surrounding areas ceasing to operate.
Some 100,000 residents of South Western Victoria who relied on communications provided by Telstra’s network were without service.
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http://www.telstra.com.au/uberprod/groups/webcontent/@corporate/@about/documents/document/uberstaging_235046.pdf