Power restored in Mumbai, home to India’s main stock exchanges, after most severe blackout in years
- The outage stranded thousands of train passengers, disrupted online college exams and affected mobile telephone services
- Mumbai’s international airport and the country’s two main stock exchanges located in the city continued operating normally
Millions went without power in India’s financial capital Mumbai and surrounding areas for hours on Monday, after a grid failure triggered its first major blackout in more than two years.
The outage stranded thousands of train passengers, disrupted online college exams and affected mobile telephone services before power was restored to most parts of the city of some 20 million.
The grid failure was caused by “technical problems” during maintenance work, the energy minister of Mumbai’s home state of Maharashtra said. In mid-2018, a fire at a transformer sparked similar power cuts in the city and its suburbs.
Throughout Monday’s breakdown, Mumbai’s international airport and the country’s two main stock exchanges located in the city, the National Stock Exchange and BSE, operated normally, their spokespeople said.
“Power supply to all essential services in Mumbai, suburbs … have been restored. Non-essential services will also be restored shortly,” Maharashtra energy minister Nitin Raut said on Twitter.
