Maharashtra energy minister Nitin Raut has ordered a high-level inquiry into the power outage. It affected entire Mumbai and its lifeline local trains
India's financial capital Mumbai witnessed a massive power outage on Sunday morning at around 9.40 am, affecting the electricity supply in almost every part of the city. The outage was due to a grid failure that also affected the city's lifeline, the local train services.
This is the second time since 2020 that Mumbai has witnessed a major power breakdown. In October 12, 2020, Mumbai saw a major power failure following grid disturbance. Due to tripping of MSEB 220kv Transmission line on Mulund-Trombay, the power supply to most parts of Mumbai was affected, the civic body stated.
Maharashtra energy minister Nitin Raut has ordered a high-level inquiry into the power outage. "I have taken this case very seriously and ordered a high-level inquiry. Appropriate action will be taken against those found guilty," he said. Several places in the city, including Sion, Matunga, Parel, Dadar, CSMT, Byculla, Churchgate, parts of Chembur, Bandra and Kurla experienced the power outage.
Read | Did China's cyber attack on India lead to Mumbai power outage last year? Here's the truth
How Mumbai was affected by power outage?
The power outage affected the entire Mumbai city and almost every aspect of the city's day-to-day functioning.
Almost all the local trains, known as the city's lifeline came to a halt in Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan region.
The Central Railway claimed that the train service on the central route was restored after 10 minutes.
On the Western line, the route between Churchgate-Mumbai Central remained affected for long time on Sunday.
Due to the disruption in suburban train services, many passengers were stuck in trains and some took to walking.
Western Railway announced the cancellation of 75 local trains while 130 were delayed on Sunday.
The August Kranti Rajdhani Express arrived 30 minutes late at Mumbai Central on Sunday due to this failure.
Residents of several high-rises were stranded in their homes or had to wait on the ground as most lifts stopped.
Read | Mumbai outage: After major blackout, power supply restored in most areas; Thackeray orders probe
Was this a cyber attack?
Meanwhile, the possibility of a cyber attack being the reason behind the outage started making rounds.
A US-based company in March 2021 gave report citing some unidentified Chinese entities were involved in 2020 power outage.
After the report came, Maharashtra ministers also started talking about a foreign hand being responsible for the power outage.
More probes were ordered by the Centre and state governments and many of those reports are yet to be submitted.
Maharashtra government's eight-member committee investigated and submitted its report citing cascade tripping as the reason.
The panel headed by Prof Fernandes, IIT- Mumbai, Dept of Electrical Engineering had then ruled out the cyber sabotage angle.
The committee report mentioned that due to heavy rains that year, the Talegaon-Kalwa line got damaged.
Outage due to fire in the BARC mountains?
State energy department head Dinesh Waghmare attributed the outage to a fire in the BARC mountains in the Trombay area.
The Mulund Trombay line passes through the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) area. The conductor had snapped.
Waghmare told people were sent to the BARC mountains, but initially they did not allow them to enter the area and do repairs.
Location of the fault was 0.26 km from Trombay side and the line had tripped due to a fire in the mountains of the BARC area.
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