Blackout in India, 600 million in the dark

A power outage "unprecedented" left in the dark for more than half of India's population, 1.2 billion people, because of the almost simultaneous collapse of supply networks in 20 states of the north, east and north-east of the country. That is not the first of Tuesday: Monday also another blackout had left 300 million people without electricity in the north.

TRAIN STOPS - It's chaos. The latest fault has stuck for six hours about 200 miners in the coal mines of Bengal, has paralyzed the subway in New Delhi and has stopped 400 trains.The Energy Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, said that the mega and blackout was caused by the fact that "States have exceeded their authorized supply capacity on their networks', producing a domino effect from the Pakistani border to the borders of north- east to China. Even New Delhi, Calcutta and Lucknow have been affected by the "big blind".

1.2 BILLION PEOPLE IN THE DARK - It took five hours to restore power in the north-east India, while the 18 local ones that serve the east and north of the country were operating at respectively 35 and 45 percent of their ability, according to pointed by the Minister of Energy, became interior minister in a day. Naresh Kumar, a spokesman for the national electricity grid, Powergrid Corporation of India, had promised a return to normal at 19 premises. "Our message to people is: you're in good hands, we work in the industry for years," he told a news conference, apologizing for the inconvenience. For its part, also the Minister of Energy of the Government of West Bengal, Manish Gupta, admitted that it was the "most serious energy crisis in the region."

EMERGING COUNTRY - In India, an emerging country in search of new sources of energy to fuel its growth, slow currents are very common, but of short duration. New Delhi, heavily dependent on coal, aims to increase the share of nuclear energy in electricity production from the present 3% to 25% by 2050.