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Queensland's mass power outage has been likened to "the impact of two cyclones happening at once" following an explosion and fire at the state's Callide power plant yesterday.

Hundreds of thousands lost power due to the outage yesterday bringing systems across the state to a grinding halt, what's been called a "catastrophic event" by the plant's CEO.

The incident is believed to have been caused after a fire erupted in one of the station's four turbines leading to an explosion, Energy Minister Mick de Brenni told Today.

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Mr de Brenni described the incident as "unprecedented", reassuring Queenslanders their power will stay on going forward.

"We don't expect that there's going to be another incident like that," he said.

"I want to reassure all Queenslanders that the system is safe.

"It is operational. And we will continue to make sure that they get cheap, reliable power.

"The guarantee that we can give to all electricity consumers, householders and businesses in Queensland, is that they can rely on their power, the lights being on today."

READ MORE: Fire causes major power outage in south-east Queensland

The reassurance comes as CS Energy CEO Andrew Bills said it would take "some time to understand the cause of the failure" and that the turbine had experienced "major damage" in the incident.

"It is too early to confidently provide a date for when the turbine would be fully operational again," Mr Bills said.

"It will take some time to understand the cause of the failure and the steps that will need to be taken to repair the unit."

The Callide power plant is one of the state's youngest electricity generators, built in 2001.

Energy provider Energex confirmed the "widespread outage", which began about 2.30pm yesterday, was affecting customers "from the Gold Coast to Caboolture".

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said 400,000 people initially lost power with traffic lights and airport systems also impacted.

Power has since been restored however the impacted turbine remains out of action.

No members of staff at the power plant were injured during the explosion and investigations into exactly how the fire began are ongoing.

"The good news is that early indications suggest that it appears the other three turbines are undamaged … we are hopeful that we will be able to get it operational as soon as possible," Mr de Brenni said.

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Police are appealing for witnesses and dashcam footage after the woman pushing a baby in a pram was struck in an alleged hit-and-run in Melbourne's north-west.

The woman, named Sarah*, was pushing the baby in a stroller when she was allegedly knocked down by a car on May 16.

The 35-year-old Ascot Vale woman was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

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She had been walking alongside a man across Mount Alexander Road, near Mascoma Street, when she was allegedly hit by a car travelling north towards Ormond Road.

"There was no traffic and then all of a sudden I'd been hit by a car," she said.

The man and the children were uninjured.

Witnesses described the car involved as a small dark-coloured hatchback.

Highway patrol officers have implored anyone in the area at the time with footage or information to come forward as the search for the alleged hit-run offender continues.

* Surname withheld

Anyone who has dashcam footage or any information that could assist police with their enquiries is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

A once-in-a-generation chance to own a piece of Australian history is here – but it'll set you back a bit in beer money.

Lee's Hotel in Ingham, Queensland, was immortalised as the "pub with no beer" in country legend Slim Dusty's song of the same name, and now it's up for sale for the first time in 50 years.

And it's long since rectified its famous problem, with publican Glen Connell pouring a schooner on Today.

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READ MORE: Entire town for sale for just $340,000

"We definitely have plenty of beer here," he said.

The pub was known as the Day Dawn Hotel when, in December 1943, US troops on the way to Port Moresby stopped for the night in Ingham and drank the cellars dry.

The following day, sugarcane farmer and poet Dan Sheahan made the 30km horseback trip into town for a refreshment, only to be told the pub was out of the good stuff.

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Glumly, Mr Sheahan ordered a glass of red, and sitting in the bar, was inspired by his doleful circumstances to write the poem that, years later, would become one of Slim Dusty's biggest hits.

Mr Sheahan was acknowledged as the author of the original poem when Slim visited Ingham, and the pair went on to work together on several other songs.

The Day Dawn Hotel was replaced by Lee's Hotel in 1960, just three years after A Pub With No Beer was released as a song.

And now, Mr Connell said, he was ready to move on and hand over custody to the next person who "wants to look after the story" – for the right price.

"Makes grown men write poems, and people write hit songs about it, so you put a price on that," Mr Connell said.

Tourism Brokers are handling the sale, and have listed the property to be sold freehold for $3.485 million.

In the baked red clay of outback Queensland, a team of palaeontologists have unearthed dinosaur bones that may belong to a new species.

The discovery was made in Eromanga in west Queensland – Australia's furthest town from the sea.

The remains were uncovered around 5pm yesterday as the team hit the "bone bed" at a site an hour from the Eromanga Natural History Museum.

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Robyn Mackenzie, Director and Palaeontologist for the Eromanga Natural History Museum, told 9News.com.au the bones likely belong to a new species, which she estimated to be around 95 million years old.

"There's a good chance it will be a new dinosaur," Mrs Mackenzie said.

"Most things found in Australia in terms of dinosaurs have a very good chance of being new to science because of the nature of how we've been separated from Gondwana and South America for so long.

"It's very exciting…it's most probably going to be the nation's youngest dinosaur."

The bones will be sent away for laboratory work but Mrs Mackenzie said they can already tell a "a little bit" about the species.

"It's from a large plant-eating dinosaur, one they call a sauropod," she said.

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So far the team have uncovered mostly vertebrae but with only a metre of earth dug out, there are high hopes of finding more remains.

It could take three to five years for the remains to be fully exhumed.

The site was first discovered by Mrs Mackenzie's son and daughter-in-law in 2018 who saw bones sticking out of the earth while mustering cattle.

They flagged the site, and a week ago the team put shovels into the ground for an official dig.

Eromanga is proving to be a hotbed for remains as there is a large area of dinosaur-age soil exposed.

"Over the past 17 years many sites have been found. Slowly each year we go through each site," Mrs Mackenzie said.

"Because the right age soils has been exposed we've actually found the dinosaur bones on top of the soil. That's the key to finding more bones beneath the ground.

"These are some of the richest dinosaur fields in Australia".

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Hazardous waves are set to pummel the Queensland coast again today after keeping surf and rescue crews on their toes over the past 24 hours.

The dangerous conditions are concentrated along the southeast coastline with meteorologists saying swells could be as strong as they were yesterday.

"It's due to quite an intense low-pressure system that developed and remains slow moving off the north island of New Zealand," Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Felim Hanniffy said.

https://twitter.com/BOM_Qld/status/1397047417921495044?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

READ MORE: Trawler crew forced to jump into rough Gold Coast waves

The Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Fraser Island Coast have seen the worst of the intense weather with waves expected to reach up to two metres today.

Yesterday, a skipper and his two deckhands had to be rescued after a "freak wave" smashed into their fishing trawler on the Gold Coast.

Deckhand Jordan Craig suffered a concussion in the chaos and had to be rescued with his crew by water police and paramedics.

"Out of nowhere, it just smashed (the boat)," Mr Craig told 9News.

Earlier in the day, a large catamaran also ran into trouble on Gold Coast waters with authorities having to tow the vessel back to port.

Mr Hanniffy said there is potential that Queensland's surf will remain at hazardous levels through to the weekend.

"The swell does ease back a touch but it will still remain elevated through the mid-week period and there's a potential for that swell to increase back up to hazardous levels later in the week as you go towards Friday and the weekend," he said.

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Elsewhere, a low, front and troughs are continuing to generate strong winds, showers and storms in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, with onshore winds bringing showers into Queensland's north.

A trough is causing patchy rain in Western Australia's northwest and a clearing high in WA's south will leave the region chilly with lows of just 7C in some areas.