Electricity disasters around the world

---

Shalek Muhid | Published: November 29, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

---

While writing this article my pen is churning with joy and pride as we have overcome the disaster of November 1 with almost no unexpected happening. During this countrywide blackout many mishaps could have happened but this great nation has proven again its patience and unity. The traditional political practice in such situation was not present; this might be a gesture of change in political culture and practice.
Widespread power outage is not a rare phenomenon; even countries like USA and Canada experienced major power outage in 2003 which was known as "Northeast Blackout of 2003". It affected 55 million people of USA and Canada.
On 14 August 2003 at 12:15 pm one of the operational technicians of Indiana-based Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) made a technical mistake which later resulted in the largest blackout of American history by 4:13 in the afternoon.
A vast geographical territory of USA and Canada was out of electricity. Almost the entire New York state including New York City, most of the places of New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan and the entire Southern Ontario of Ontario province of Canada were in complete blackout.
The power system took almost 7 hours to be restored at 11:00 pm. Transportation system, water supply, traffic control, health service, mobile network everything depending on electricity affected by the power out. Reportedly 4 men died of road mishap due to traffic control failure in USA and another in Canada, 3 died by carbon monoxide poisoning produced from generator, 3 were killed by fire in different blackout areas.
Why this happened? The question hanged on the atmosphere of two countries. The Governments and authorities of USA and Canada blamed each other for the failure of power grid as the grid was shared by these countries. This mishap played a significant role in provincial election of Ontario.
Six weeks later on September 28, 2003 another power outage took place in Europe. Entire Italy was submerged in darkness from 12:00 am to 6:00 am. This power outage affected some areas of Switzerland but they restored it within 3 hours. This Italian power grid failure affected 56 million people. Many people were trapped in underground train. The Italian National Power Supply Agency (ENEL) started restoration process immediately but it took them 12 hours to provide electricity to Italians. The September 27 night was the night of "Nuit Blanche" festival (an all-night art festival also known as "The White Night"). Thousands of people came to Rome to attend the festival. Most of them had to spend the night on the streets and train stations. Moreover there was heavy rainfall. It made the night a nightmare to them.
ENEL (Ente Nazionale per l'energia ELettrica) told in its report the power outage occurred due to a problem in Italy-Switzerland electricity line and Swiss authority agreed with ENEL investigation report.
The worst power out till now is the electricity disaster in India on July 30-31 in 2012. According to The Guardian, almost 700 million people (9% of world's population) of 20 states including the capital were affected by this 48-hour blackout. Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh experienced blackout for 48 hours and Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh were out of power for 24 hours.
The consequence was horrible. City transportation system was seriously affected, hundreds of flights suspended, several airports shut down, the health care facility seriously harmed, water supply completely collapsed. Crowded cities of India were out of electricity for almost 48 hours and the consequence is easily perceivable if compared with our 12-hour Dhaka experience.
Not only 2012 blackout, India holds the record of the second largest power outage which occurred on January 1, 2001 affecting 230 million people.
The Java-Bali Blackout in 2005 left 100 million people of Indonesia without electricity for 8 hours. Another major blackout of recent time is Brazil Paraguay Blackout of 2009 where 87 million people were affected.
On the scale of affected population, power cut of November 1 is the third worst power outage of the world where over 160 million people were out of power for 12 hours.
All the above disasters have one thing in common -- people of affected areas proved their patience in each case. Disasters appear to test our unity and patience and when it goes, a nation finds it more united and more confident. We have faced and will face all the disasters keeping hand in hand.

The writer is a student of Public Administration at Jahangirnagar University. Email: shalekmuhid@gmail.com