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India's energy crisis cascaded over half the country Tuesday when three of its regional grids collapsed, leaving 620 million people without government-supplied electricity for hours in, by far, the world's biggest blackout.



Hundreds of trains stalled across the country and traffic lights went out, causing widespread traffic jams in New Delhi. Electric crematoria stopped operating, some with bodies half burnt, power officials said.
Two hundred workers were stranded in three coal mines in West Bengal when the blackout cut off electricity to elevators in their underground pits, a mining company official told The Times of India.
"We are waiting for the restoration of power to bring them up through the lifts, but there is no threat to their lives or any reason to panic," Nildari Roy, a senior official at the mines' operator, Eastern Coalfields Limited, told The Times of India.
The massive failure -- a day after a similar, but smaller power failure -- has raised serious concerns about India's outdated infrastructure and the government's inability to meet its huge appetite for energy as the country aspires to become a regional economic superpower. The power failure affected people across 20 of India's 28 states -- about double the population of the United States.


Read more: Half of India without power after grids fail for second day | Fox News