New Delhi, July 30 (IANS) An unprecedented power outage crippled Delhi Metro for an hour and seriously disrupted services for another two hours, impacting tens of thousands of passengers in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida.
For the first time since the service started in 2002, Metro trains could not even be taken out from depots as electricity supply across north India was paralysed after the Northern Grid collapsed.
All 139 Metro stations in Delhi, Gurgaon in Haryana and Noida in Uttar Pradesh did not open in the morning. Thousands who reached the stations decided to wait; many switched over to buses and autos.
Metro trains operate from shortly after 5 a.m. on the Yellow Line that links Huda City Centre in Gurgaon and Jahangirpuri in north Delhi. All the services stretch well up to midnight.
As large crowds began collecting outside stations, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) hurriedly deployed more men and women to control the surge.
"We had to deploy additional personnel at all stations," CISF spokesperson Hemendra Singh told IANS. Usually, some 1,000 men and women are posted in one eight-hour shift. This went up by 400 Monday morning.
"There was tremendous rush at each station as soon as the services resumed. This was especially so at Rajiv Chowk. The first few trains were packed, and the doors were not closing due to the rush," Singh said.
When the first train reached Sector 18 Noida station on the Blue Line after 8 a.m., "people were packed in the coaches like sardines", passenger Rahul Dass told IANS.
"I managed to squeeze in but many could not," he said.
A Metro official told IANS that no train was operated on the any of the lines till 7 a.m.
With authorities treating Delhi Metro as an emergency service, it began to get power supply from then on.
Services eventually started in phases after 7 but it took almost two hours for the situation to normalise.
The Metro ran special trains from Kashmere Gate and Rajiv Chowk stations, among the busiest, to clear huge crowds on the platforms. The two stations get a footfall of 5 lakh and 2 lakh passengers a day respectively.
Delhi Metro operates over 2,700 trips a day, covering about 70,000 km and carrying around 1.8 million passengers on week days.
Over the years, the Metro has become a cheap, convenient and reliable mode of travel in the capital.
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