World's biggest power outage hits 20 states
31 Jul 2012
A major power crisis gripped 20 states after electricity grids across the states and the national capital collapsed today.
While the northern grid failed for the second day after yesterday's collapse, the eastern and north-eastern grids also crashed. Between them the grids carry about 50,000 MW of electricity.
The collapse has left over half of the country or 600 million people without power, in one of the biggest-ever blackouts in the world. The Delhi Metro as also railways and essential services and public transport systems were also hit.
The National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC), under the power ministry said, "Grid incident occured at 1300 hrs affecting the northern grid, eastern grid and north-eastern grid- System Under Restoration.
The triple-grid failure has hit 22 states and union territories. The northern grid covers nine regions -- Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Chandigarh, while the eastern grid covers at least six states, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Sikkim. The north eastern grid delivers electricty to Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
V K Agrawal, the general manager of the northern grid told AFP that both the northern and eastern grids had collapsed and the authorities were busy with the revival efforts
