In Noida, long power outage hits Independence Day

Heavy rains, coupled with high-speed winds, which lashed Noida and adjoining areas in the wee hours of Monday, hit power supply and threw normal life out of gear, spoiling the "Independence Day mood". HT reports.

Heavy rains, coupled with high-speed winds, which lashed Noida and adjoining areas in the wee hours of Monday, hit power supply and threw normal life out of gear, spoiling the "Independence Day mood".

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A faulty drainage system and numerous potholes caused massive water-logging in several areas. Delayed construction projects, diversions, dug-up roads and lack of waste disposal mechanism led to hellish conditions.

"The city administration has been exposed. It was never prepared to deal with such situations," said Sandeep Singh, a resident.

Several areas experienced power cuts for four to six hours because of snapping of wires, uprooting of electric poles and bursting of underground cables. High-speed winds uprooted trees in sectors 30, 34, 55 and 61. The wind also damaged wires and poles.

From 5 am to 10 am, several sectors - including 12, 55, 56, 52, 61, 27, 19, 10, 63, 66, 21, 23, 25, 34, 35, 105, 110, 132 and 135 - faced power outage.

In A and B blocks of Sector 34, power supply was disrupted the whole day because of burning down of three transformers. The A block of Sector 23 was worse affected - bursting of underground cables did not allow mechanics to fix the problem till late in the evening.

Balloons got stuck high-tension wires and hit the functioning of the sub-station there. Officials of the electricity department and Noida Authority took three hours to fix the snag.

Snags in high-tension wires hit a sub-station in Sector 39, which affected power supply in sectors 39, 40, 41 and 49.

A senior electricity department official said, "Most of the problems are being caused because of overhead wires. Work is on to lay cables underground. We will soon start avoiding such disruptions."