Millions of people across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) went without electricity for between three and 12 hours, owing to a rare grid failure triggered by “multiple trips” during maintenance work on Monday morning. A power outage of this scale had last happened in November 2010, while in mid-2018, a fire on a transformer caused major electricity cuts in the city and its suburbs.
Monday’s blackout from around 10.05am paralysed India’s financial capital, already strained by a pandemic, stranding thousands of train passengers; affecting hospitals, online exams and mobile telephone services; disrupting the new normal of work-from-home; trapping people in elevators and even causing the police control room to crash.
While the power supply was gradually restored starting 1pm, many parts of the city (especially in eastern suburbs), Thane and Navi Mumbai were without electricity for more than 12 hours. In some areas, supply was restored only to be cut again and it hadn’t been restored until late night.
