Blackout in north India as
power grid trips
Moisture On Lines Cuts Off
Supply For 7 Hrs
New Delhi: Many parts of
northern India, mainly Punjab and Haryana, plunged into darkness
in the wee hours of Saturday as the regional grid collapsed due
to dense fog. It took seven long hours to resume the power
supply.
Electricity was partially restored in some parts of Punjab
and Srinagar by 7.30 am after supply from Jalandhar, Nathpa
Jhakri (Himachal Pradesh) and Uri sub-stations were diverted to
these states. Normal supply in Haryana and J&K was restored by
10.30 am, while it took a little longer in Punjab. The situation
was not as serious in the National Captital Region as some
precautionary measures were in place to deal with dense fog.
Officials of the central transmission utility, Power Grid
corporation, said normalcy has been restored. “All the stations
in Punjab have been given start-ups (late in the afternoon) and
they would commence resuming supply any time soon ... System has
come to normalcy,” Power Grid Corporation CMD S K Chaturvedi
said. Reports from Chandigarh said power situation in major
parts of Punjab and Haryana normalised only in the evening. The
northern grid tripped around 3.02 am following a technical snag
in transmission lines that reduced power to zero at many
sub-stations in Punjab and Haryana. Transmission was disrupted
as moisture was deposited on lines due to thick fog, officials
said.
The grid failure also led to disruption of supply to hydel
and thermal power plants in the states. Supply in Ropar,
Bathinda, Lehra Mohabbat Power Projects in Punjab and Yamuna
Nagar and Panipat power stations in Haryana was disrupted.
AGENCIES
RUNNING INTO ROUGH WEATHER
Fog delays 70 domestic
flights in Delhi
 Thick
fog and a cable fault played havoc with flight operations in and
out of Delhi since the wee hours on Saturday as over 70 domestic
flights were delayed, six cancelled and 17 international
services diverted to some other cities.
Almost 45 domestic departures and 25 arrivals were delayed
by two to five hours and 17 international flights were diverted
to Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Six domestic flights were
cancelled.
No flight could take off or land from 2 am when runway
visibility dropped to 100 metres and a major glitch occurred in
the cables connected to the instrument landing system (ILS) that
measures and provides real-time runway visibility data to the
ATC tower. This forced the ATC officials to suspend all flight
operations.
The cable fault was rectified partially by 10 am and flight
operations resumed at 10.30, sources said, adding that several
of the diverted international flights were given the green
signal to fly in to Delhi.
With runway visibility improving to 800 metres by mid-day,
flights were resumed using the two main runways equipped with
Category-III B ILS that allows flight operations when runway
visibility is less than 100 metres. Earlier, none of them could
be used as the instrument could not provide the information to
the ATC due to the cable fault. AGENCIES
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