Asia's second most populous country, India, was struck with widespread blackouts as half the country was left without power again today.

For the second day, that country has been affected by blackouts, this most recent blackout that happened today, cut power to 650 million people. Lights in major cities, including New Delhi and Kolkata went out shortly after 1 pm India time. Yesterday, power outages left 300 million people without power for 10 hours.

Throughout the country, trains came to a halt, as power went down. Traffic lights shutting down caused massive traffic snarls.

Sushilkumar Shinde, the power minister for the country, blamed overuse of power by states using more power than they were authorized. Lack of rain has farmers using power to irrigate their fields and the hot summer has urban residents running air conditioners longer than usual. Shinde said the offending states will be penalized for their over-usage.

The country has long been considered power defficient. But, government officials say that the country has more than enough facilities to generate the power but lack the coal and gas to fire them.