INDIA’S SECOND power breakdown in as many days yesterday left more than 600 million people without electricity.
In possibly the world’s worst blackout, the power outage spread over 19 of India’s 29 provinces, including the federal capital New Delhi. It paralysed more than half the country, disrupting air, rail, hospital, communication and emergency services.
Passengers in several carriages of Delhi’s metro system, which carries more than 1.8 million people a day, were stranded underground in oppressively hot conditions for extended periods.
Unruly traffic built up on congested streets and highways across the country as traffic lights ceased to function.
Two-hundred coal miners trapped underground in eastern India were rescued late in the evening. Efforts were continuing to evacuate another 65 miners who remained trapped after overloaded power lines collapsed at about 1pm local time.
Yesterday’s breakdown of the eastern and northeastern power grid came barely 24 hours after the northern electricity network collapsed for more than nine hours on Monday, affecting almost 400 million people in a country that prides itself on being a nuclear weapon state and potential economic superpower.
Electricity was restored within hours on Monday afternoon.
Stretching more than 3,000km from Assam, near China, to the Himalayas and the northwestern deserts of Rajasthan, yesterday’s outage covered states where half of India’s 1.2 billion people live.
The outages have proved embarrassing for the government of Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, due to its apparent inability to meet the country’s growing energy needs as it strives to become an economic powerhouse.
“There is no way India can become an economic world power with such outages due to its crumbling infrastructure,” businessman Bhupinder Singh said.
Road rage intensified across Delhi as motorists took hours to travel short distances, with buses, trucks and two-wheelers jostling to get ahead, further exacerbating the capital’s daily bedlam.
There were similar traffic conditions in large and small towns across India.
Oppressive humidity and a shortage of water, which could not be pumped out via electric pumps, compounded people’s difficulties.
Even though the blackout was unusual in its reach, its impact was mitigated by familiarity with frequent blackouts and an accompanying attitude of resignation from a population used to such power cuts.
Back-up generators employed by commercial and residential blocks across Delhi and other cities partially alleviated the effects of the blackout, but added to the din and the existing high levels of pollution.
Railway stations were teeming with thousands of commuters waiting for trains that were not coming. Railway officials said more than 500 trains were stranded.
Essential services such as hospitals, phone exchanges and airports were operating only partially on generators.
