

Commuters crowd a busy road outside a Metro station after Delhi Metro rail services were disrupted following power outage in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, July 31, 2012. Indian officials say the nation's northern and eastern power grids have failed, leaving about half the country without power. The collapse of the grids Tuesday afternoon came a day after the northern grid failed and left eight states without power for much of the day.
© AP
NEW DELHI - The second Indian power blackout as many days has hit a wider swathe of the country than the first, this time including eastern as well as northern states, the state-run power transmission company said in a statement.
Power has been cut to hundreds of millions of people in populous northern and eastern states, including the capital Delhi and major cities such as Kolkata.