India blackouts affect half the country

Grids fail in northeast, leaving hundreds of millions in the dark

CBC News  Jul 31, 2012

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World’s biggest blackout3:02

India’s energy crisis cascaded over half the country Tuesday when three of its regional grids collapsed, leaving hundreds of millions of people without government-supplied electricity in one of the world’s biggest-ever blackouts.

The outages left about 620 million people in the dark in about 20 states, though the Times of India newspaper reported that by 7:30 p.m. local time, around 75 per cent of the power had been restored in northern areas and about 40 per cent of eastern India was back to normal.

Hundreds of trains were stalled across the country and traffic lights went out, causing widespread traffic jams in New Delhi. Electric crematoria stopped operating, some with bodies half burnt, power officials said. Emergency workers rushed generators to coal mines to rescue miners trapped underground.

The Times of India reported that about 200 miners in the northeast were rescued in West Bengal in the evening, while another rescue operation was underway at Jharkhand to help 65 others trapped in a coal mine.

Commuters wait for buses outside a Metro station after Delhi Metro rail services were disrupted following power outage in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Rajesh Kumar Singh/Associated Press)

The massive power failure — a day after a similar, but smaller power failure — has raised serious concerns about India’s outdated infrastructure and the government’s inability to meet its huge appetite for energy as the country aspires to become a regional economic superpower.

Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde blamed the new crisis on states taking more than their allotted share of electricity.

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