While people were trying to beat Monday blues, little did Mumbaikars know they were in for more trouble when the financial capital almost came to a halt on Monday morning, October 12. An unprecedented power cut in Mumbai has come as a shock for Mumbaikars.
Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) PRO was quoted as saying that due to grid failure there is off supply in the entire MMR region.
The major power issue wasn't limited to Mumbai though as residents from Thane, Mira Bhayandar also complained of a power outage. This led to trains halting from 1005 hours, ATMs too stopped functioning. Adani, TATA and BEST, the three major power suppliers to the city and the metropolitan region, posted a message saying work is currently underway to restore power supply to Mumbai at the earliest.
BEST tweeted that the electric supply is interrupted due to TATAs incoming electric supply failure.
Mumbai has enjoyed uninterrupted power supply as Mumbai islands itself and people in Mumbai are not used to power cuts. They do not have generators or even invertors as people in cities like Delhi and other metros do.
BEST issues statement:
Maharashtra Energy Minister Nitin Raut stated that the regions between Thane and Mumbai are facing a power cut due to a technical glitch in Circuit 2 of the Kalva-Padghe powerhouse. "Our staff is working on it and power will be restored in an hour or 45 minutes," he said.
BMC Commissioner I.S. Chahal issued a statement that all the hospitals have to function and for that they should contact their respective SWM transport GARAGE officers to get enough supply of diesel for at least eight hours so that there are no power failures in hospitals especially ICUs.
He also directed disaster control and CE M&E to keep stand by private MOBILE DG SET vehicles handy within next one hour.
BEST official statement was released at around 1015 hours. It said that electric power failure is due to Central grid failure of TATA Power at Kalwa and it will take 45 min to 1 hr to restore the supply. Train traffic of all lines Central, Eastern and Western disrupted. Mumbai Airport, however, remained unaffected.
Don't test the wrath of mildly inconvenienced Mumbaikars: Twitter reacts
Twitter was full of reactions pouring in from Mumbaikars. Amitabh Bachchan said, "Entire city in power outage .. somehow managing this message .. keep calm all shall be well."
Another Mumbaikar wrote, "Don't test the wrath of mildly inconvenienced Mumbaikars! Take away the electricity & you'll break our famous spirit."
Replying to the above Tweet, another one posted, "Nikhil, we are spoilt for choice - in fact we are the only city in India to have excess electricity at our disposal...Tata Powers Trombay and Hydroelectric plants, Adani's Dahanu power plant... we are also one of the rare cities to have a power plant within city limits."
According to latest updates, power has been restored in many parts of Mumbai after a blackout of over 2 hours.
