印度北方大面积停电 3亿人受影响

A protracted blackout disrupted the lives of an estimated 300m people across northern India on Monday, as the aspiring superpower's fragile infrastructure added to the woes of a government already struggling to manage the slowing economy, persistent inflation and the failure of the monsoon rains.

一场漫长的停电周一扰乱了印度北方大约3亿人的生活，这个志向高远的超级大国脆弱的基础设施，给本已在艰难应对经济减速、通胀居高不下以及今年雨季降雨偏少的政府增添了新的烦恼。

The blackout, which began at about 2.30am and lasted more than 12 hours in many areas, was the worst power failure in India for more than a decade.

从凌晨2时30分开始的这次停电，在很多地区持续了12个小时以上，成为十多年来印度最严重的停电事故。

Millions of people were left without electric fans or air conditioning in the 30°C heat, train services were disrupted, traffic was paralysed and New Delhi's airport was forced to rely on back-up power systems for several hours. Emergency energy supplies from Bhutan helped the government restore power in many affected areas by early evening, but public discontent still simmered.

在30摄氏度的高温天气里，数百万人无法使用电扇、空调，铁路服务也被迫中断，交通一度瘫痪，新德里(New Delhi)的机场被迫使用备用电力系统数小时。傍晚的时候，不丹王国的紧急能源供应帮助印度政府恢复了很多停电区的供电，但公众的不满仍在升温。

Authorities suggested that the crisis may have been caused by northern states drawing more than their allocated power quota to help stricken farmers pump groundwater from deep borewells in an effort to save their dessicated crops.

当局提出，此次停电的原因，可能是北方各州为了帮助农民从深井中抽取地下水为干旱的庄稼灌溉，从电网汲取了超出其配额的电力。

Electricity supplies are already under heavy pressure as increasingly affluent Indians acquire more fans, televisions, air-conditioners and other appliances, and manufacturers expand their operations.

随着印度富人拥有越来越多的电扇、电视、空调、以及其他家电，加之制造商拓展业务规模，电力供应已经处于较大的压力中。

Businesses complain they are often first to be sacrificed as the government grapples with power shortages.

企业抱怨，政府在应对电力短缺的时候，他们往往首先成为牺牲品。

While power-generation capacity has increased through private investment in recent years, much of the new capacity is in India's coal-rich but comparatively poorer eastern region, where energy demand is more subdued. The antiquated state-run power grid, operated by the Power Grid Corporation of India, is struggling to transmit surplus electricity generated in the east to the heavily industrialised and more affluent northern and western regions.

尽管近些年由于私人投资，印度发电能力有所增加，但新增电力主要分布在煤炭资源丰富、相对较贫穷的东部地区，而这些地方的能源需求不高。由印度电网公司(Power Grid Corporation of India)运行的陈旧的国家电网，难以把东部剩余电力输送到高度工业化和更加富有的北部和西部地区。