RailEnquiry

A day after Blackout Monday, it was Apocalypse Tuesday. Crores of houses were darkened, Metro downed shutters, thousands stranded on traffic signals, millions others stuck in trains across 20 states, water utilities stopped production, patient services at hospitals and other essential services took a hit. All in an unprecedented day when three power grids – northern, eastern and north eastern – tripped simultaneously, plunging about half of India into darkness.Derailed Rail services came to an abrupt halt as soon as the power tripped from the northern grid, affecting about two lakh passengers. As many as 120 trains were affected and the northern railway rescheduled 20 trains.Though no train was cancelled but in the absence of specific information on the railway stations, passengers had a harrowing time.Metro mayhem For over two hours on Tuesday, the Capital's lifeline, Delhi Metro, stopped operation. The services on all the six lines remained suspended between 1.02pm and 2.50pm.Thousands of commuters stuck in over 100 trains had to be evacuated from over 100 trains at stations while commuters stuck in eight trains on Line 2, (Jahangirpuri-Gurgaon) were made to reach the nearby station through the tunnel.Traffic chaos Traffic jams were reported from across the Capital as signals failed. The inner and outer ring road remained clogged. Harried commuters were fleeced by auto-rickshaw drivers in the absence of metro and erratic bus service.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic jams were reported from ITO, Vikas Marg, Barakhamba Road, Mandi House, Connaught Place, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Karol Bagh, Sarojini Nagar, Moolchand flyover and Laxmi Nagar among other places.

Water supply down There was a total shut down at all the water treatment plants and other installations of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) for almost three hours, resulting in shortfall in in supply on Tuesday evening. "However, the situation is under control and water supply on Wednesday morning would be normal," said a DJB official.

No turbulence Flight operations at the IGI airport remained normal.

"Flight operations at IGIA are absolutely normal and there are no cancellations or delays. The entire power load of the airport was restored within 15-60 seconds. This was made possible by anextensive arrangement of power back-up and multiple redundancies put in place by Delhi International airport limited (DIAL)," said a DIAL spokesperson.

No health scare The hospitals in the city continued to sustain on power back up for the second consecutive day on Tuesday. All essential services, emergency, intensive care, operation theatres, nurseries were running on generators.

Markets All markets remained open and it was business as usual.

Schools/colleges School and college authorities claimed no disruption was caused either due to the rain or due to the power cut.