A Power Outage Brought the World's Largest Mall to Darkness

Monday night (April 24th) saw The Dubai Mall plunge into darkness after the ENTIRE place experienced a blackout. 

Around 7.15pm, shoppers were left in total darkess as the power cut, and while authorities rushed to restore the power, patrons were told to remain calm. 

For just over 90 minutes, visitors, staff and security wandered the mall in the dark - and we all know just how busy the place can be even with power on an evening, so we can only imagine the chaos while the lights were out. And the tills, escalators and lifts. 

The only light sources came from the mall's emergency exit lights and shoppers' mobile phone flashlights.

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Of course, residents stranded in the mall were quick to share their eerie pictures of the place... With one shot of Dubai Aquarium's largest tank that looks like it's straight out of the nightmare of someone who has thalassophobia.

 

A post shared by Altaf Ilahi (@ilzinho) on

Apr 24, 2017 at 8:31am PDT

Even from the outside, The Dubai Mall was just a large black hole in what is normally a popular and illuminated part of Downtown Dubai. 

 

A post shared by Khaleej Times (@khaleejtimes) on

Apr 24, 2017 at 12:03pm PDT

 

A post shared by Mirin Park (@mirinpark89) on

Apr 24, 2017 at 9:46am PDT

This one creeps us out a little...

 

Even the poor fish are in darkness. #DubaiMall #LightsOut #NoPower #DubaiAquarium #NoFilter

A post shared by Andrea Hewitt-Sims (@hewittsimsandrea) on

Apr 24, 2017 at 8:47am PDT

But what caused the blackout?

A lot of residents and social media users poked fun at The Dubai Mall, questioning whether they had paid their DEWA bill... Which, we're sure, many of us have experienced at least once during our lives here.

Someone seriously forgot to pay for their electricity bill! #DubaiMall @TheDubaiMall ~ How does the biggest mall run out of electricity?!

— TravelWithSona (@TravelWithSona) April 24, 2017

Who didn't do the needful and pay the DEWA bill at #DubaiMall

— Ryan (@rmdarnell) April 24, 2017

And while it's amusing to think that they missed a payment, the reason behind why the power outage happened is in fact due to the transferring of high-voltage cables from Dubai Mall substation. 

#DEWA would like to thank @DXBMediaOffice @DubaiPoliceHQ @Dubai_Ambulance @CivilDefenceUAE & #DubaiMall & #Emaar & DEWA technicians pic.twitter.com/CcWVP5yodL

— DEWA | Official Page (@DEWAOfficial) April 24, 2017

On DEWA's official Twitter account, they thanked Dubai Media Office, Dubai Police, Dubai Ambulance and the Civil Defence teams for their assistance during the blackout.