India faced massive blackouts for the second day Tuesday, leaving more than half of the country, including the capital city of New Delhi, without electricity, according to UPI. The country's northern power grid failed Monday, then again Tuesday along with the eastern and northeastern grids, representing a total of about 50,000 megawatts of electricity, Press Trust of India reports. About 20 of India's 28 states were affected by Tuesday's blackout and as many as 600 million people. Monday's outage affected eight states and a total population of about 370 million. While India continually faces power outages and electricity shortfalls, the latest episodes were the worst in more than a decade. New Delhi's metro rail system, which carries about 2 million passengers daily, went out of service for the second day in a row Tuesday. Roads were snarled with traffic, amid darkened traffic signals. The northern grid failed at 2:35 a.m. Monday. That afternoon, Indian Minister for Power and Energy Sushil Kumar Shinde said 60 percent of electricity supply had resumed, as power was drawn from Bhutan and eastern and western grids. Shinde attributed Monday's blackout to northern states drawing more than their allocated power quota.
