NEW DELHI
(AP) - India's energy crisis cascaded over half the country Tuesday
when three of its regional grids collapsed, leaving 620 million people
without government-supplied electricity for several hours in, by far,
the world's biggest blackout.
Hundreds of
trains 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 massive 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about India's outdated infrastructure and the government's inability to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.
"Everyone
overdraws from the grid. Just this morning I held a meeting with power
officials from the states and I gave directions that states that
overdraw should be punished. We have given instructions that their power
supply could be cut," he told reporters.
The
new power failure affected 620 million people across 20 of India's 28
states - about double the population of the United States. The blackout
was unusual in its reach, stretching from the border with Myanmar in the
northeast to the Pakistani border about 3,000 kilometers (1,870 miles)
away. Its impact, however, was softened by Indians' familiarity with
frequent blackouts and the widespread use of backup generators for major
businesses and key facilities such as hospitals and airports.
Shinde
later said power was fully restored in the northeast grid four hours
after it went down, and that the north grid had 45 percent power and the
east grid 35 percent. R.N. Nayak, chairman of Power Grid Corp., which
runs the nation's power system, said he expected to have full power
later in the evening.
Oddly, as the crisis
dragged into the evening, Shinde was promoted, becoming India's home
minister, its top internal security official. The promotion had been
planned previously as part of a greater Cabinet shuffle before he
presided over the world's two worst power outages.
The
outages came just a day after India's northern power grid collapsed for
several hours. Indian officials managed to restore power several hours
later, but at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday the northern grid collapsed again, said
Shailendre Dubey, an official at the Uttar Pradesh Power Corp. in
India's largest state. About the same time, the eastern grid failed and
then the northeastern grid followed, energy officials in those regions
said. The grids serve more than half India's population.
In
West Bengal, express trains and local electric trains were stopped at
stations across the state of West Bengal on the eastern grid. Crowds of
people thronged the stations, waiting for any transport to take them to
their destinations.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it would take at least 10 to 12 hours to restore power and asked office workers to go home.
"The situation is very grave. We are doing everything to restore power," West Bengal Power Minister Manish Gupta said.
New
Delhi's Metro rail system, which serves about 1.8 million people a day,
immediately shut down for the second day in a row. Police said they
managed to evacuate Delhi's busy Rajiv Chowk station in under half an
hour before closing the shutters.
S.K. Jain,
54, said he was on his way to file his income tax return when the Metro
closed and now would almost certainly miss the deadline. Hours later,
the government announced it was giving taxpayers an extra month to file
because of the chaos.
Tuesday's blackout
eclipsed Monday's in India, which covered territory including 370
million people. The third largest blackout affected 100 million people
in Indonesia in 2005, according to reports by The Associated Press.
India's
demand for electricity has soared along with its economy in recent
years, but utilities have been unable to meet the growing needs. India's
Central Electricity Authority reported power deficits of more than 8
percent in recent months.
In addition, vast amounts of power are pirated through unauthorized wiring that taps into the electrical system.
The
power deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric
generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity
usage as people seek to cool off.
But any
connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India's
households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, according
to last year's census.
2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
