Now there seems to be a race between transzorbs and SCRs!

In any case what I was keen to know is, whether there is any way of surviving such disasters when they do happen.

Most of the protection described till now by posters fall into the category of a sudden overvoltage - like a linear 24V dc regulated supply loosing regulation and passing on the unregulated 30 odd volts. But the case of 230 or 415V ac coming in contact with a low level control supply is a disaster.

At the end of it, it does look that there is no protection against such instances. In fact if such a thing happens one is not sure about the path the HT will take - like Steve said , in my case it must have been a 230V bolt - not that it was mild or sweet.

Good I am alive after the mishap and will have to bring in much more tighter controls while working in such mixed up panels. Discipline is the keyword. And as Donald said, maybe I will change all handles of screwdrivers to good aluminium ones. I like it !!

Cheers

Raghu