NEW DELHI — Electric crematoria were snuffed out with bodies inside, New Delhi’s Metro shut down and hundreds of coal miners were trapped underground after three Indian electric grids collapsed in a cascade Tuesday, cutting power to 620 million people in the world’s biggest blackout.
While Indians were furious and embarrassed, many took the crisis in stride, inured by the constant — though far less widespread — outages triggered by the huge electricity deficit stymieing the development of this would-be Asian power.
Hospitals, factories and the airports switched automatically to their diesel generators during the hours-long cut across half of India. Many homes relied on backup systems powered by truck batteries. And hundreds of millions of India’s poorest had no electricity to lose.
“The blackout might have been huge, but it wasn’t unbearably long,” said Satish, the owner of a coffee and juice shop in central Delhi who uses only one name. “It was just as bad as any other five-hour power cut. We just used a generator while the light was out, and it was work as usual.”
The crisis was the second record-breaking outage in two days. India’s northern grid failed Monday, leaving 370 million people powerless for much of the day, in a collapse blamed on states that drew more than their allotment of power.
At 1:05 p.m. Tuesday, the northern grid collapsed again, energy officials said. This time, it took the eastern grid and the northeastern grid with it. In all, 20 of India’s 28 states — with double the population of the United States — were hit in a region stretching from the border with Myanmar in the northeast to the Pakistani border about 3,000 kilometers (1,870 miles) away.
Hundreds of trains stalled across the country and traffic lights went out, causing widespread jams in New Delhi.
By evening, power had been restored to New Delhi and the remote northeast, and much of the northern and eastern grids were back on line. Electricity officials said the system would not be back to 100 percent until Wednesday.
At a contentious news conference, R.N. Nayak, chairman of Power Grid Corp., which runs the nation’s power system, said his staff was searching for the cause of the problem and pleaded for patience.
India’s Central Electricity Authority reported power deficits of more than 8 percent in recent months, and many economists said the power deficit is dragging down India’s economy.
“Without power we cannot run an economy at 8 percent, 9 percent growth or whatever your ambition is,” Chakraborty said.
Part of the problem is that India relies on coal for more than half its power generation and the coal supply is controlled by a near state monopoly that is widely considered a shambles.
In addition, vast amounts of power bleeds out of India’s antiquated distribution system or is pirated through unauthorized wiring. And farmers, with a guarantee of free electricity, have no incentive to conserve energy.
Other large blackouts
Some notable power outages around the world:
July 30, 2012: India’s northern electricity grid fails for much of the day, leaving 370 million people without power.
Aug. 18, 2005: An imbalanced power grid kicks power plants offline in Indonesia leaves almost 100 million people in the dark, many for more than five hours.
Aug. 14, 2003: The worst U.S. blackout. Power line problems in the Midwest trigger a cascade of breakdowns that cut power to 50 million people in eight states and Canada, some for more than a day.
March 1989: A solar geomagnetic storm knocks out power to 6 million people in the Canadian province of Quebec and parts of the U.S. for nine hours.
Nov. 9, 1965: The Great Blackout shakes Americans’ faith in the power system. A faulty substation relay darkens New York City and thousands of square miles of the U.S. northeast for about 14 hours. Power is out for 25 million people.
The Associated Press
