TORONTO – Northern India’s power grid crashed Monday, leaving more than 600 million people sweltering in the summer heat. Hundreds of trains halted, hospitals and airports engaged backup generators, and buildings were without water because pumps weren’t working.
This blackout has been the largest worldwide since 1965, and tops our list of notable power outages.
1. Northern India blackout 2012
Date: July 30, 2012
Number of people affected: 370 million
Length of power outage: 2:30 a.m. until late morning or early evening depending on location
Cause of blackout: The grid could no longer keep up with the demand for power in the hot summer, officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh said. However, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said he was not sure exactly what caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate it.
2. Northern India blackout 2001
Date: January 2, 2001
Number of people affected: 226 million
Length of power outage: 12 hours
Cause of blackout: Officials called it a fault in the transmission system, and the CRO Forum report on power blackouts says a technical failure and failure of a substation in Uttar Pradesh was the cause.
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3. Java Island, Indonesia blackout
Date: August 18, 2005
Number of people affected: 100 million, nearly half of Indonesia’s population
Length of power outage:Seven hours
Cause of blackout: Mulia Aji of power utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara told The Associated Press it had nothing to do with fuel supplies to the company’s power plants, which were disrupted the month before.
4. Southern Brazil blackout
Date: March 11, 1999
Number of people affected: Between 75 to 97 million people
Length of power outage: Five hours
Cause of blackout: The government didn’t immediately provide a reason, and the national energy company reportedly said problems in a transmission line in southern Brazil were the cause. However, BBC News later reported that officials blamed a bolt of lightning for the power cut. A CRO Forum report suggests a chain reaction was started when lightning hit an electricity substation causing most circuits to trip.
5. Brazil and Paraguay blackout
Date: November 10, 2009
Number of people: Estimated 60 million
Length of power outage: Over five hours; eight hours in some locations
Cause of blackout: Energy officials said it was likely caused when a storm downed three transmission lines carrying power from the giant Itaipu hydroelectric dam on Brazil’s border with Paraguay, which supplies about 20 per cent of Brazil’s energy and 90 per cent of Paraguay’s.
Honourable mention:
Canada- U.S. blackout affecting Ontario and the Northeastern and Midwestern U.S.
Date: August 14, 2003
Number of people:50 million people; 10 million in Ontario and 40 million in eight U.S. states
Length of power outage: Between seven hours and four days depending on location
Cause of blackout: Theories ranged from lightning striking a power station to terrorist attacks, but the cause of the blackout was later determined to be a short circuit in a power transmission line in Ohio. This short circuit overloaded the grid, creating a domino effect of power outages.
With files from The Associated Press
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