Mumbai faces major power outage, local train services hit for an hour

Power outage in many parts of Mumbai on Sunday (February 27) morning also affected local train services for over an hour on one of the lines.

Media reports quoting officials said that after over an hour of disruption, the power supply, which had been impacted in south and central Mumbai, started getting restored from around 11 am.

The local train services, considered as the lifeline of the country’s financial capital, were halted for an hour on the Western Railway line between Churchgate and Andheri stations from 9.50 am this morning, said officials.

Supply disruption from Tata Power was blamed for the disruption but the services on the line were however fully restored by 10.53 am. Train services on the Central Railways Harbour Line had also halted for a few minutes before resuming, officials said, adding that the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in south Mumbai also faced a power outage.

Residential pockets of Dadar, Matunga, Sion, among others, reported power outage in the morning.

Also read: China may have been behind Mumbai power outage last Oct, claims study

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), the civic power and transport undertaking, which supplies power to the island city, said there was a tripping of a 220 kV transmission line from Mulund to Trombay which resulted in its consumers not getting power.

In a statement, a Tata Power spokesperson blamed the Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company’s line from Kalwa (in neighbouring Thane) to Trombay that caused massive voltage fluctuations causing the tripping of its Trombay Salsette-1 unit.

However, Tata Powers Hydro plants were intact, and the Bhira Hydro Plant got islanded and synchronised. The electricity has been restored by Tata Power, the spokesperson added.

Usually, railway authorities carry out maintenance works mid-day on weekends for a certain time, due to which travellers advance their journeys. The disruption on Sunday ended up aggravating their woes.

Mumbai is safeguarded from any disruptions in power supply in the rest of the state or country. The city had last faced a major outage in October 2020, which took over 18 hours for the full restoration of services and was blamed on a cyber attack in some quarters.