Power grid crash leaves 370m feeling the heat

Northern India’s power grid crashed, halting hundreds of trains, forcing hospitals and airports to use back-up generators, and leaving 370m sweltering in the summer heat.

The blackout, the worst to hit India in a decade, highlighted the nation’s inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become a regional economic power.

Small businesses were forced to shut for the day. Buildings were without water because the pumps weren’t working.

The northern grid crashed at about 2.30am because it could no longer keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer, officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh said.

However, Sushil Kumar Shinde, the power minister, said he was not sure what exactly caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate.

The grid feeds the nation’s breadbasket in Punjab, the war-wracked region of Kashmir, the burgeoning capital of New Delhi, the Dalai Lama’s Himalayan headquarters in Dharmsala, and the world’s most populous state, the poverty stricken Uttar Pradesh.

By late morning, about 60% of the power had been restored in the eight northern states affected by the outage.

The rest was expected to be back on line by last night, Shinde said.

The grid was drawing power from the neighbouring eastern and western grids as well as getting hydroelectric power from the small neighbouring mountain kingdom of Bhutan.

New Delhi residents were roused from sleep when their fans and air conditioners stopped and came out of their homes in the heat as the entire city turned dark. Temperatures in the city were in the mid-30s, with 89% humidity.