Kolkata goes without power

He also said that engineers and top officials of the company were trying to locate the fault and restore the power supply.

The power failure affected most of the hospitals in the city with many postponing surgeries and emergencies shutting down. Metro services were also hit for 10 minutes between 5.42 and 5.52 pm.

“It was only at 6 pm that supply to essential services was restored,” said a CESC spokesperson. CESC officials termed it as a technical snag and said it was an accident.

Till late in the evening,various parts of the city were still in darkness. In the city and its suburbs,people had to face the ordeal of being without electricity and water supplies.

Adding to this,the power snag took place during one of the hottest days of this summer when the maximum temperature was five degrees above normal and heat wave conditions swept across the city.

At various places,angry residents put up road blockade protesting against disruption in power supply.

The Joint Entrance Examination that was scheduled till 5 pm was also affected due to the power shortage.

Thousands of Calcutta University students who are scheduled to appear in the final year examinations,beginning tomorrow,were also affected by the power outage.

The power failure even affected railway services as distribution of local tickets was affected.

At Howrah,train services were disrupted for one — from 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm because power failure had snapped signalling system. Power went off at Dum Dum airport,too,for one hour. But it did not affect the flight schedules.

At one point,there was a shortage of mineral water bottles and candles as people made a beeline to the nearest store.

The police began patrolling the streets to prevent any untoward incident.

Asked what caused the tripping,Sen said they were yet to pinpoint the reason as their priority now was to quickly restore the supply.