India struggles back from power blackout that plunged 600 million into darkness
3:37 PM, July 31, 2012
NEW DELHI ? India?s electricity grids suffered another massive failure Tuesday, the second in two days, frustrating commuters, stranding coal miners and leaving more than 600 million people without lights, rail service or air conditioning in 90-degree heat.
R.K. Nayak, chairman of the Power Grid Corporation of India, told reporters at a news conference in the capital that the problem was difficult to pinpoint given the network?s complexity, but that he hoped to see the system up and running by midnight.
?Some sections might have caused tripping but it is difficult to give you anything at this time,? he added.
By early evening, power officials were reporting that around 40 percent of the system was operating normally again.
The massive outage ? billed as one of the world?s largest, affecting half of India?s 1.2 billion people ? occurred soon after the northern grid was powered back up after a 15-hour failure Monday, only to collapse again shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday. That tripped the eastern and northeastern grids in quick succession, leaving much of the country in the dark and the capital with 1 percent of its usual electricity supply....
