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Thailand's Cyber Wars: Blackout

Thailand's Cyber Wars: Blackout



VICE News



Published on Aug 2, 2016


In BLACKOUT, a series made possible by Jigsaw, VICE News takes viewers across the globe, from Pakistan to Belarus, to examine technology's role in the ongoing fight for free expression. Watch the rest of the series here: http://bit.ly/1UNxdKP

In May 2014, Thailand’s royal army staged a coup and seized control of the country. Declaring a state of emergency, the ruling Junta began to crack down on civil liberties and silence dissent. A series of cyber laws have since been proposed that would increase the state’s power to control and monitor the internet. In response, activists have declared a cyber war on the Thai Junta, attacking government websites and urging tourists to boycott Thailand.

VICE News meets the hackers determined to cyber-bully the government into submission.

Watch "Blackout: Being LGBT in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan” - http://bit.ly/28JVmo5

Watch "Blackout: Venezuela's Activist Journalists" - http://bit.ly/28SjEcD

Watch "Blackout: Inside Belarus, Europe's Last Dictatorship" - http://bit.ly/2a5FlX3

Watch “Blackout: Leaks from Eritrea, Africa's North Korea” - http://bit.ly/2aKDWZt

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From stocks to airplanes to newspapers, it's just been a bad day for tech

Outages on Wall Street, in the airline industry and at a top newspaper on Wednesday show just how precarious our digitally organized lives are.

by Laura Hautala @lhautala
July 8, 2015 1:59 PM PDT

United Airlines flights were temporarily grounded on Wednesday, but are now back in the air.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images




They say everything happens in threes. Wednesday proved that adage as the New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines and The Wall Street Journal all suffering outages of crucial online systems.

The strange coincidence of episodes, two of which have been publicly attributed to internal errors and not hacking attacks, shows the extent to which we live at the mercy of online systems.

Trading on the stock exchange was suspended from about 11:30 a.m. to 3:10 p.m. in New York due to a computer glitch. United Airlines flights across the US were temporarily grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration Wednesday morning because of a problem in the airline's computer network caused by a faulty router. And in the midst of it, the Journal's online homepage crashed and stayed out of commission for just under an hour for reasons the company has not yet determined.


If you were a banker trying to catch a United flight and get updates on the New York Stock Exchange from the Journal this morning, your best bet was probably to head to the nearest airport bar.


Jeff Williams, a software security specialist and the chief technology officer at Contrast Security, said although two of the companies say they weren't hacked, it's actually not that easy to make that call right away. "Could an attacker have found a vulnerability (or multiple vulnerabilities) that would allow them to take down three major firms?" he wrote in an email. "Absolutely."


Trading did continue on the NYSE's competitor exchanges, and it's not the first time a stock market has suffered from technical problems. However, it was the first time in ten years that the NYSE shut down completely during what would otherwise be normal operating hours. The last time something like this happened was in 2005, when a communication system glitch shut it down four minutes before the closing bell.


The grounding of United flights is expected to cause delays going forward, and the company has put a note on its website offering waivers for missed flights.

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Severe storms bring damaging winds through Central Florida

(PHOTO/Aaron March, viewer) Lightning strikes near the Tico Warbird Airshow in Titusville.






























By Danny Treanor, Meteorologist
Last Updated: Sunday, March 24, 2013, 7:26 PM



VIDEO STORIES

Timelapse of Downtown Orlando clouds

Windy weather at Florida Mall

Downed power lines near Lake Louisa State Park

Timelapse as storms move over the Amway Center

WEATHER ON THE 1'S

Current Temperatures
County by County Forecast
LIVE Digital Doppler X3 Radar
Cloud to ground lightning
24 hour rainfall totals



POWER OUTAGE UPDATES


Check with your provider to see where outages still exist:
Progress Energy
OUC
Florida Power and Light


A line of showers attached to a cold front are moving through Central Florida.

———————————————

Latest updates:

7:24 p.m.: Click here for a list of local storm reports from the NWS Melbourne Office.

6:51 p.m.: Numerous power outages have been reported. View the outage map for your power provider below:
Progress Energy
OUC
Florida Power and Light

6:11 p.m.: Local storm report from 2:29 p.m. by the emergency manager of a measured wind gust of 86 mph from the west-northwest in the Dr. Phillips area in Orange County.

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310,000 still without power in the Northeast

Posted on Sunday, 02.10.13


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


BOSTON -- More than 310,000 homes and businesses remain without electricity following the massive snowstorm that swept across the Northeast, with most outages in hard-hit Massachusetts.

Utilities in Massachusetts are reporting more than 234,000 of their power customers still in the dark Sunday afternoon, down from more than 400,000.

The storm started Friday night and dumped up to 3 feet of snow and knocked out power to more than 650,000 homes and businesses in eight states, from Maine to Pennsylvania.

About 55,580 customers in Rhode Island and more than 16,000 in Connecticut still were without power Sunday afternoon.

Power still had not been restored to 3,800 customers in New York, down from nearly 12,000.


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Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/10/3226953/310000-still-without-power-in.html#storylink=cpy

Storm batters NY, New England, dumping foot and a half of snow; 500,000 lose power

Blizzard churns toward New York and New England: Storm, poised to dump up to three feet of snow from New York to Boston and beyond beginning Friday afternoon, sends residents scurrying to stock up on food and water and road crews spreading salt and sand.




By Associated Press, Published: February 8 | Updated: Saturday, February 9, 1:00 AM


BOSTON — A storm that forecasters warned could be a blizzard for the history books, with a potential for up to 3 feet of snow, clobbered the New York-to-Boston corridor on Friday, grounding flights, sending office workers home early and knocking out power to half a million customers across the Northeast.

By Friday night, more than 18.5 inches of snow had fallen in parts of central Connecticut, and more than 16 inches covered parts of Mansfield, Mass., a half-hour drive southwest of Boston. Throughout the Northeast, more than 500,000 homes and businesses lost electricity as wet, heavy snow, freezing rain and howling winds caused havoc.

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P.S. 

The Snow Storm is called Nemo? Is it really OMEN?

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Facebook Outage Blamed on DNS Issue

By Damon Poeter
December 10, 2012 10:31pm EST

Facebook on Monday blamed a DNS infrastructure issue for a widespread site outage that lasted between 15 and 25 minutes for some users, according to reports.

The outage, while brief and quickly fixed, generated a flurry of media reports and complaints on other social networks like Twitter. Facebook reached 1 billion active users in October and even short disruptions of service on a site that huge can have substantial ripple effects.

At the very least, they don't go unnoticed.

Here is Facebook's explanation for the outage, which occurred during the early evening and reportedly affected users in North America and Europe, as related by Business Insider:

"Earlier today we made a change to our DNS infrastructure and that change resulted in some people being temporarily unable to reach the site. We detected and resolved the issue quickly, and we are now back to 100 percent. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Those who reported being affected by outage described disruptions ranging from pictures not loading properly to the entire site being unavailable. CNET's Zack Whittaker reportedthat evidence suggested the disruption "was near to or was a global outage," though beta.facebook.com and the mobile version of the site accessed via mobile device apps was reportedly unaffected.

Facebook's back-end problem bookended a rough day for Internet consumer service giants.

Earlier on Monday, Google's Gmail experienced an outage, with some users reporting that the problem extended to the company's Chrome browser and to Google Drive as well.

Gmail started experiencing problems around noon Eastern. At PCMag, Gmail failed to load, and then produced a 502 error page. "The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request," the error noted. "Please try again in 30 seconds. That's all we know."

Google declared the issue resolved just after 1 p.m.

With additional reporting by Chloe Albanesius.



For more from Damon, follow him on Twitter @dpoeter.

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Gmail in widespread outage, also caused Chrome browser crashes

Summary: Gmail suffered a widespread outage earlier today. It's not yet clear what caused the problems, but in many cases it also caused Chrome browsers to crash worldwide.


By Zack Whittaker for Between the Lines | December 10, 2012 -- 17:39 GMT (09:39 PST)




Gmail was hit with an outage at around 12 midday ET. Screenshot: ZDNet

Gmail is down... and it's up again, in what may be the strangest, shortest outage the company's cloud-based email service has suffered in memory.

Gmail suffered from a widespread outage earlier today. First reported from social media services -- such as Facebook and Twitter -- many were unable to access their Google-based email accounts for minutes.

At 12:30 p.m. ET, Google said that it was "investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail," and said it would provide more information shortly. It did not offer anything else, except marking it has a "service disruption," rather than a "service outage."

At 1:10 p.m. ET, Google gave the all-clear and said that the "problem with Google Mail should be resolved." Google also noted a problem with Google Drive, which has also been fixed.

ZDNet's Rachel King said that her personal email account was down, while our Google Apps-powered email system remained "spotty." All in all, it appears that Google was down for only a few minutes -- perhaps no 15-20 minutes or so -- but it certainly left its mark on social media feeds.

Many users received 502 server errors when visiting their Gmail. So far, there's nothing from Google on the official Twitter accounts and no word back from the company. (Perhaps their Gmail is down? I jest...)

Google Apps was not reporting any outages at the time of writing, suggesting that Google Apps for Business, Government and Education users were not affected.

However, Eric Harrison on Twitter said:

EricGHarrison@EricGHarrison


@zackwhittaker I can confirm that Gmail for businesses is being impacted by the outages.
10 Dec 12



CBS Interactive's email system, hosted by Google Apps, was also impacted. However, it did not hit everyone in all of our offices, but seemed patchy for few. Others were left out in the cold for 20 minutes or so.

At the same time, Twitter suddenly spiked with a number of reports that Google Chrome was crashing. (I experienced it myself. I had to write much of this report three times due to crashes.) It could well be that a bug co-exists between Chrome and Gmail that is causing the crash, and may somehow relate to Google Sync.

Matthew Ebel@matthewebel


WTF, Chrome? RT @Dragoneer: Four separate people I was talking to had their Chrome crash all at the EXACT same time.
10 Dec 12



There have been a few reports of other Google services failing to work, such as Google Calendar, Google Drive and Google Docs, although it seems to be mostly focused on the firm's cloud-based email service.

According to Ian Danforth on Twitter:

iandanforth@iandanforth


WARNING: Google chrome latest has a bug that will cause it to crash while in gmail. To reduce frustration use another browser today.
10 Dec 12



Also, Google Drive was causing problems. It appears likely that global Google site code was conflicting somehow with Chrome, or Chrome's synchronization service, that was causing the crash.

CNET's Danny Sullivan said:

Danny Sullivan
✔@dannysullivan


wow. google drive is now crashing chrome. wow. and i'm not the only one this is happening to.
10 Dec 12


The last major outage with Gmail was back in April where up to 35 million customers were affected, or roughly 10 percent of Gmail's global user base. Many were left unable to access their personal email accounts, and in some cases, their Google Apps-powered email accounts.

We've checked in with Google but did not hear back at the time of writing. We will report back when we have more.

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Astounding images of New York City plunged into darkness

Its own generator kept the lights in the Empire State Building on.

Astounding images of New York City plunged into darkness

1 hr ago1871

The city that never sleeps has been forced to have a lie down with much of the city now in darkness as Sandy holds New York in its grip. Some amazing images are being shared on social networks which show just how tenuous humanity's dominance over nature really is. Streets and subways are flooded and blackouts are affecting much of the city as the deluge continues.

Click to see more on msnNOW.com, updated 24 hours a day.

Read more:

Amazing photo shows seawater flooding Ground ZeroWatch this exploding transformer at NYC power plant light up the skyDramatic photo of flooded Hoboken PATH station shows Sandy's delugeHurricane Sandy photos are proof of storm's power

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Sandy comes ashore with flooding, power outages

1 hr ago By MSN News with wire reports

Massive flooding, high winds and widespread power outages hit the East Coast as Sandy moves inland.

NEW YORK — Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline with 80 mph winds Monday night and hurled an unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater at New York City, threatening its subways and the electrical system that powers Wall Street. At least four deaths were blamed on the storm, and the presidential campaign ground to a halt a week before Election Day.

Sandy knocked out power to at least 3.1 million people, and New York's main utility said large sections of Manhattan had been plunged into darkness by the storm. Water pressed into the island from three sides.

At least four deaths were blamed on the storm in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York. Among them were two people killed by falling trees.

As the storm closed in, it smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor — Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston — with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph. It also converged with a cold-weather system that turned it into a superstorm, a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind but snow.

Sandy made landfall at 8 p.m. near Atlantic City, which was already mostly under water and saw a piece of its world-famous Boardwalk washed away earlier in the day.

Authorities reported a record surge more than 13 feet high at the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan, from the storm and high tide combined.

In an attempt to lessen damage from saltwater to the subway system and the underground electrical network that underlies the city's financial district, New York City's main utility cut power to about 6,500 customers in lower Manhattan. But a far wider swath was hit with blackouts caused by flooding and transformer explosions.

Rising floodwaters forced the closing of LaGuardia and JFK airports, according to media reports. All MTA bridges and tunnels, including the Battery Tunnel and Queens Midtown Tunnel, were closed to traffic the Metropolitan Transit Authority said. Authorities say it could take a week for the tunnels and subway to reopen. The MTA reported up to four feet of seawater at a Lower Manhattan subway station.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo confirms cars are floating down streets in Lower Manhattan.

Between 8 million and 10 million people could lose power over the next few days as the storm moves through New England, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.

Airlines canceled more than 12,000 flights, disrupting the plans of travelers all over the world, and storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

Because of Sandy's vast reach, with tropical storm-force winds extending almost 500 miles from its center, other major cities across the Northeast - Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston - also prepared to for the worst.

"The days ahead are going to be very difficult," Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said. "There will be people who die and are killed in this storm."

Federal government offices in Washington, D.C., will be closed to the public on Tuesday, as Hurricane Sandy threatens to cause extensive damage to the area. Amtrak also said it has canceled all Tuesday service in the Northeast due to high winds and heavy rain from Hurricane Sandy.


more hurricane sandy coverage
Slideshow: Hurricane Sandy
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Sandy unlikely to hurt US economy
Storm effect on sports world
Sandy blows the election off course


Sheila Gladden evacuated her home in Philadelphia's flood-prone Eastwick neighborhood and headed to a hotel.

"I'm not going through this again," said Gladden, who had 5 1/2 feet of water in her home after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

The storm washed away an old section of the world-famous Atlantic City Boardwalk and left most of the city's emptied-out streets under water. All 12 casinos in the city were closed, and some 30,000 people were under orders to evacuate.

"When I think about how much water is already in the streets, and how much more is going to come with high tide tonight, this is going to be devastating. I think this is going to be a really bad situation tonight," said Bob McDevitt, president of the main Atlantic City casino workers union.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, addressing those who were told to evacuate the state's barrier islands, said in his usual blunt way: "This is not a time to be a show-off. This is not a time to be stupid. This is the time to save yourself and your family."

In New York City, where 375,000 people were ordered to clear out, authorities closed the Holland Tunnel, which connects New York and New Jersey, and a tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Street grates above the subway were boarded up, but officials still worried that seawater would seep in and damage the electrical switches.

The major American stock exchanges closed for the day, the first unplanned shutdown since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Wall Street expected to remain closed Tuesday. The United Nations canceled all meetings at its New York headquarters. New York called off school for the city's 1.1 million students Monday and Tuesday.

Cuomo deployed National Guard troops to the city and Long Island.Broadway shows were canceled for Sunday and Monday. One small hospital was being evacuated, while several others were moving patients to higher floors.

Amtrak said passenger service between Boston and Raleigh, N.C., and between the East Coast and Chicago, New Orleans and Florida will be suspended Tuesday for the second day in a row.

This is the second time in 14 months that New York City has faced a scenario forecasters have long feared: a big hurricane hitting the city or a bit south, such that the cyclone's counterclockwise winds drive water into miles of densely populated shoreline.

Hurricane Irene ultimately came ashore as a tropical storm in Coney Island, with a 4-foot storm surge that washed over parts of the southern tip of Manhattan but didn't wreak the havoc that officials had feared, although it caused tremendous damage elsewhere. Some experts have said that a surge 3 feet higher could have caused huge damage.

The storm bore down barely a week before the presidential election. Wary of being seen as putting political pursuits ahead of public safety, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney reshuffled their campaign plans.

In Virginia, one of the most competitive states, election officials eased absentee voting requirements for those affected by the storm. Three other closely contested states, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio, were within Sandy's reach. Early voting was canceled Monday in Maryland and Washington, D.C., both reliably Democratic.

Craig Fugate, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA teams were deployed from North Carolina to Maine and as far inland as West Virginia, bringing generators and basic supplies that will be needed in the storm's aftermath.

"I have not been around long enough to see a hurricane forecast with a snow advisory in it," Fugate told NBC's "Today" show.

Pennsylvania's largest utilities brought in hundreds of line-repair and tree-trimming crews. In New Jersey, where utilities were widely criticized last year for slow responses after the remnants of storms Irene and Lee, authorities promised a better performance. Hundreds of homes and businesses were already without electricity early Monday.

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East Coast storms cut power to thousands, trigger twister alerts

Julio Cortez / AP

A guard shields himself from the rain at a worksite in Newark, N.J., on Tuesday.

By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET: Tornado watches were issued for much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, part of a storm front that brought high winds and heavy rain. Thousands lost power and air travel was disrupted across the region.

Major cities within the tornado watches included New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The watches also cover parts of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

Wind gusts up to 70 mph are possible in those areas, the National Weather Service said in issuing the watches, some of which run through 11 p.m. ET.

In Wildwood, N.J., wind gusts ripped the facade off a store, NBCNewYork.com reported. In Ridgewood, N.J., winds toppled a tree onto the roof of a home. No injuries were reported in either incident.Airport travel was disrupted by winds throughout the day across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, the FAA said on its flight delay website.

Some 4,000 homes and businesses lost power on Long Island, the NBC station added.

In Connecticut, 15,000 customers had lost power, NBCConnecticut.com reported.

Localized flooding is also a danger from parts of the Appalachians into the Northeast, weather.com reported.

Some 28,000 homes and businesses lost power Tuesday afternoon in the Washington and Baltimore areas, NBCWashington.com noted.

In Pennsylvania, some 11,000 customers lost power, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.

The same system on Monday caused flooding in parts of Tennessee. More than 5 inches of rain fell in Putnam County, where 8 water rescues were reported.

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Massive blackout hits Cairo, sparking new anger at Egyptian government

August 9, 2012 | 9:06 am

CAIRO -- Egypt was plunged into its worst blackout in months Thursday when a power outage swept across much of the capital, crippling the Egyptian Stock Exchange, stranding passengers in subway cars and creating fresh anger at the embattled government.

The outage was the latest in a spate of blackouts that have paralyzed cities across the nation this summer. Egyptians also are becoming less patient with ubiquitous shortages of water and fuel, especially because they have been occurring when tempers are short in the sweltering heat during the fasting month of Ramadan.

The crisis adds to new President Mohamed Morsi's challenges because many Egyptians attribute the problems to the state's poor management. Power disruptions have been maddeningly more frequent than in past summers and appear to symbolize a fledgling democracy in trouble.

"I am sorry for the power cuts. I have the same problem at home, and I promise it will be solved as soon as possible," Morsi told Egyptians this week.

After trading stalled for almost two hours, stocks on the Egyptian Exchange fell by $164 million in the early hours before regaining some of their value. Cairo's underground Metro was paralyzed in the morning as hundreds of thousands of people tried to head to work and go about their day. Passengers were reported to be stuck in crowded cars and on platforms waiting to get out.

"Every time I step into a lift, I pray to God that I will reach my destination safely. I am not claustrophobic. I am just worried that a sudden power cut, the likes of which are frequent nowadays in Egypt, will leave me trapped inside a metal box for endless hours," columnist Ramadan A. Kader wrote in the Egyptian Gazette.

He added: "As far as I know, no area in Egypt, poor or fashionable, has been spared this niggling problem, which seems, bizarrely, to respect social justice. There is no clear explanation for the widespread power outages."

The latest blackout was caused by gas and diesel shortages in a power plant on the outskirts of Cairo, according to officials. Egyptian authorities have repeatedly vowed to resolve the crisis, but with fuel shortages and a scorching summer season, the problem has escalated.

Experts have repeatedly suggested that Egypt reform its energy subsidy program, considered one of the most wasteful in the world.

"There have been several measures suggested a while ago for reforming subsidies and other energy activities that the government needs to consider," said Mohab Hallouda, an energy specialist with the World Bank in Cairo.

In a move to implement austerity measures, Egypt's government cut subsidies for energy-intensive factories last January. Hallouda said that political turmoil has kept previous transitional governments from applying more budget reforms.

The country has seen at least three Cabinet reshuffles since the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak early last year. With almost half of the population living under the poverty line, more citizens felt the blow to the economy during the ongoing political turmoil.

Despite the obstacles, Hallouda said he believes that more concrete policies need to be implemented immediately: "Reforms obviously mean increasing tariffs to some sectors and those who can afford it, but we must make sure that those who need subsidies aren't denied."

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Nearly 30K Without Power in Greenwich

Power should be returned by 8 p.m., according to Connecticut Light & Power

Monday, Aug 6, 2012 | Updated 2:28 PM EDT

A power line on fire along Sullivan Avenue in South Windsor Sunday night

Nearly 25,000 customers of Connecticut Light & Power in Greenwich are without electricity after a tree fell on a major transmission line, the company reported Monday.

Outages in Stamford were restored by Monday afternoon, but 24,594 residents of Greenwich still lacked power, the utility said. The outage occurred when a tree -- 85-feet tall and 16-inches in diameter -- was knocked onto transmission lines.

A 24-ton crane was used to clear the tree from the site Monday, the utility said.

The summer storms that blew through the region last night knocked down the tree, which was on a private property on Summit Road, said power company spokesman Frank Poirot. Power should be restored by 8 p.m., Poirot said.

Stay on top of summer storms with interactive radar.

The First Selectman in Greenwich declared a state of emergency at 10:15 a.m. Greenwich police also warn that many traffic control signals might not be operating during the power outage.

Businesses or residences that use the municipal sewer system are asked to help conserve water to the greatest extent possible to reduce the strain on the municipal sewer pump stations and treatment plant.

The Town of Greenwich opened cooling centers at noon on Monday. They include the Community Room of the Public Safety Complex, at 11 Bruce Place, and the Ben Heim Western Greenwich Civic Center, at 449 Pemberwick Road.

The cooling spots will have connections for charging personal electronic devices. There will be no food or water.

The storm also caused rail problems because the line is in close proximity to railroad tracks operated by MetroNorth and Amtrak.

Metro-North trains are currently not operating west of the Cos Cob station, according to Greenwich officials.

Metro-North warns customers to expect crowded conditions and delays of up to 30 minutes.

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370M INDIANS SWELTER IN HEAT AFTER POWER FAILS

Jul 30, 8:12 AM EDT


BY RAVI NESSMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Northern India's power grid crashed Monday, halting hundreds of trains, forcing hospitals and airports to use backup generators and leaving 370 million people - more than the population of the United States and Canada combined - sweltering in the summer heat.

The blackout, the worst to hit India in a decade, highlighted the nation's inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become a regional economic power.

Some small businesses were forced to shut for the day. Buildings were without water because the pumps weren't working. Muslim families were forced to eat their pre-dawn meals by candlelight before beginning their daytime Ramadan fast. "It was really difficult," said farmer Mohammed Zaman.

The northern grid crashed about 2:30 a.m. because it could no longer keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer, officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh said. However, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said he was not sure exactly what caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate it.

The grid feeds the nation's breadbasket in Punjab, the war-wracked region of Kashmir, the burgeoning capital of New Delhi, the Dalai Lama's Himalayan headquarters in Dharmsala and the world's most populous state, the poverty stricken Uttar Pradesh.

By late morning, 60 percent of the power had been restored in the eight northern states affected by the outage and the rest was expected to be back on line by the afternoon, Shinde said. The grid was drawing power from the neighboring eastern and western grids as well as getting hydroelectric power from the small neighboring mountain kingdom of Bhutan.

New Delhi residents were roused from sleep when their fans and air conditioners stopped and came out of their homes in the heat as the entire city turned dark. Temperatures in the city were in the mid-30s (90s Fahrenheit) with 89 percent humidity. New Delhi's Metro transit system, with 1.8 million daily riders, stopped for hours during the morning commute. Some trains across the northern region were stranded when their electric engines failed. Others were delayed by hours as they were hooked to diesel engines.

Amit Naik, a toy maker in New Delhi, was forced to close his workshop for the day.

"There was no water, so my machine couldn't run. Other people had the same difficulties," he said.

While the outage was unique in its reach, its impact was softened by Indians' familiarity with almost daily power outages of varying duration. Hospitals and major businesses have backup generators that kick in when during power cuts, and upscale homes run on backup systems powered by truck batteries.

"This will obviously get worse," said Subhash Chawla, a 65-year-old retiree who took the Metro once power was restored. "Unless the Metro has a separate power supply, it will be chaos in the future."

The Confederation of Indian Industry said the outage was a reminder of the urgent need for the government to fix the power sector, ensure a steady supply of coal for power plants and reform the electricity utilities. Transmission and distribution losses in some states are as much as 50 percent because of theft and corruption by employees in the power industry.

Shinde deflected criticism, pointing out that the United States and Brazil also had huge power failures in recent years.

"I ask you to look at the power situation in other countries as well," he said.

The failure was the first time since 2001 that the northern grid had collapsed. But India's demand for electricity has soared since then as its economy has grown sharply. The outage was a reminder of the country's long road ahead in upgrading its infrastructure to meet its aspirations of being an economic superpower.

India's Central Electricity Authority reports power deficits of about 8 percent in recent months. But any connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India's households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year's census.

The power deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity usage as people seek to cool off. Shivpal Singh Yadav, the power minister in the state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people, said that while demand during peak hours hits 11,000 megawatts, the state can only provide 9,000 megawatts.

Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation chief Avnish Awasthi blamed the grid collapse on states drawing more than their allotted power to meet the summer demand.

Earlier this month, angry crowds blocked traffic and clashed with police after blackouts in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon that houses many high-rise apartment blocks and offices. With no power in some neighborhoods for more than 24 hours, people erected blockades that paralyzed traffic for several hours.

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Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee contributed from Lucknow, Aijaz Hussain from Srinagar and Ashwini Bhatia from Dharmsala.

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