Power outage: Substations switched off in flooded areas

In several areas, especially the flooded ones, substations were switched off by electricity suppliers to avoid short circuits and electrocution. As water levels rose on Tuesday afternoon, power suppliers, Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST), Reliance Energy and Tata Power announced that substations had been switched off as a safety protocol.

This left many houses in the dark for over 10 hours. While some could not cook as they depend on induction cookers, others in high rises could not go out as lifts were not working. “Cut off from news, we did not know for how long the blackout would last. Those with inverters, too, didn’t want to run appliances as it would take up too much energy,” said Noor Zehra Gheewala, a resident of Mumbra.

Many areas also saw cable failures. In Gandhi Market, power failure in some housing societies occurred on Tuesday night and was to be restored till late. Shaishab Zaveri, a resident of Motibaug in Gandhi Market, said calls to helplines did not yield results. “After our initial complaint, a team from BEST visited the spot and told us that there was a cable failure. They said a different team would come and tend to the problem. However, nobody has turned up yet,” said Zaveri.

A BEST official said the undertaking lacked manpower and vehicles to tend to all the complaints received over the past two days. “Most parts in the city have underground cables and if there is a failure, it takes time to identify the point of failure. Complaints received on Tuesday could not be tended to owing to the rain and have been carried over to Wednesday adding to the work,” said the official. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) received 55 complaints of short-circuit from the city, according to data received from the corporation.