After 9 hours in the dark, Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, has light again.
Technical issues were responsible for the major power outage.
While the megacity has been hit by blackouts before, Sunday’s shutdown was unusually long.
Sunday’s outage, spread across an area populated by more than 100 million people and lasted more than 9 hours. Most of the capital has been affected, prompting the use of generators in some offices, malls and apartments.
The blackout began just before noon local time (0500 GMT). By 9pm, the state-owned electricity company, PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), was able to switch back 17 electrical substations around Jakarta.
Meanwhile, officials are investigating the source of the major black-out.
But when the power came back… Everybody was very happy!
Transport and telecommunication chaos
While operations at Jakarta’s international airport and public hospitals remained normal (generators), hundreds of passengers were left stranded after commuter lines stopped working.
Traffic lights also stopped working in some areas of the capital, creating traffic jams. The power outage finally disrupted some cellular phone networks.
Such huge power outages, especially in capital cities, aren’t good at all for business as they could discourage investment.
A few weeks ago, Venezuela was completely blacked-out for more than 4 days.
