In , Telstra Operations director, service delivery northern region, John Parkin, wrote the telco had some 200 technicians on the ground and "additional resources on hand" to begin repair and recovery works as soon as it was safe to do so.

According to Parkin early indications suggested about 15,000 landline phones were out of service and more than 60 mobile towers were without service on Telstra's network.

"Despite this, our mobile network is operating normally in these areas, as many impacted sites have overlapping coverage," the post reads.

"In addition to network outages, we expect individual service faults to be much higher across the region as people return home and to their businesses."

Some 450 network sites, which included exchanges, mobile towers, and roadside cabinets, were either without power or operating on back-up power.