kolkata about 200 passengers were stuck in an ai plane bound for delhi as the aerobridge lost power but there was the first glimmer of hope the entire cesc system collapsed on sunday evening the first time in its history plunging the city into darkness and distress in the middle of a heat spell with the prospect of watching the kolkata knight riders and team hyderabad match looking dark cesc regional offices had a tough time controlling frayed tempers budge budge and southern stations should be back in operation by 830 pm the cesc top brass have promised a thorough investigation into sundays blackout so that it doesnt recur water supply was cut off all evening chief minister buddhadeb bhattacharjee and his principal opponent mamata banerjee shared the same fate a power cut of about half an hour at their homes the administration which had not faced such a situation before seemed lost for answers though the snag was identified within an hour cesc officials were tightlipped on whether a systemic loophole caused it or if the problem could recur coming just ahead of elections the power collapse came as massive embarrassment to cesc as the government had urged both the private and state utilities to ensure minimum loadshedding in the runup to the polls the allout failure has prompted a police probe protests erupted across the city leading to huge traffic jams we expect the titagarh unit to be back any moment cesc turned to wbsedcl which started generating power fullsteam to bail out the private power utility south kolkata where both buddhadeb and mamata live was still better off than the north where power had not come till 11 pm a little after 8 pm power started returning to homes in some areas just in time to see for sourav ganguly walk to the crease the unprecedented crisis blacked out over 2 million homes in kolkata it will be past midnight before supply is restored said an official cesc sources said they traced it to a crash in a west bengal state electricity distribution co ltd wbsedcl substation in howrah which triggered a fault at the cesc synchronization point breaching its protection system and creating a domino effect the failure at the critical synchronization unit the only point where all power supplied by cesc and wbsedl pass through to undergo a voltagephasefrequency match cut off power to the entire city and suburbs our kashipur plant that generates 5060 mw has returned cesc power generating stations at budge budge titagarh southern and kashipur tripped there was no supply from palta and garden reach in the evening the rest of the city fared worse at 440 pm metro commuters rushing home were in for a shock the lights went out and even the stations plunged into darkness there was chaos all round total normalcy should be restored around 930 pm said a cesc official at 730 pm kolkata knight riders were to take on team hyderabad later in the evening