Spain and Portugal have been hit by a massive power outage that cut off electricity to millions of people across both countries, including their capitals, and also hit parts of southwest France, according to grid operators.
The blackout late on Monday morning knocked out train traffic, metro networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines. It was not immediately clear what caused the outage or exactly how many people had been affected.
The Spanish government convened a crisis meeting at the national electricity operator, Red Eléctrica, attended by the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and finance, environment and transport ministers, to discuss “the worst power outage in the country’s recent history”.
The government said in a ststement it was “is working to determine the origin and impact of this incident, and is dedicating all resources to resolve it as quickly as possible”.
The operator said it was working to bring back power and had succeeded in parts of the the north and south of the country. A spokesperson told local media it could take between six and ten hours to fully restore the electricity supply.
Spanish media reported that the national cybersecurity institute was investigating the possibility of a cyber-attack. The country’s national security council was also convened on Monday afternoon to discuss the blackout.
The Portuguese cabinet also called an emergency meeting at the prime minister’s residence. The country’s REN operator said the entire Iberian peninsula was affected by the blackout, which it said happened at 11:33am (1033 GMT), plus part of France.
Spain’s railway operator Adif said the power cut halted trains across the entire country, while the airports operator Aena said “several incidents” had occurred at Spanish airports. Mobile phone networks and internet access went down.
In Portugal, the outage hit the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country. The government said the incident appeared to stem from problems abroad.
“It looks like it was a problem with the distribution network, apparently in Spain,” the cabinet minister António Leitão Amaro told the national news agency Lusa. Several Lisbon metro carriages were evacuated and ATMs and electronic payment systems froze.
In Madrid and other cities, many traffic lights ceased to function, bringing vehicles to a near standstill as they slowed to avoid collisions, while metros were also halted. Spain’s national road authority, DGT, urged motorists to stop using the roads.
El País newspaper posted photos and video on its website of passengers navigating darkened metro tunnels in the Spanish capital and police directing traffic on the city’s streets. Footage also showed its own reporters working by torchlight.
The Spanish health ministry said in a social media update it was in contact with regional authorities to assess the scope of the widespread blackout but reassured the public that hospitals had supplementary systems in place.
A graph on Spain’s electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a steep drop at about 12.15pm, from 27,500MW to almost 15,000MW.
The European Commission said it was in contact with Spanish and Portuguese authorities to understand the underlying cause of the blackout.
With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
Spain and Portugal, national security council, Spain, traffic lights, metro networks
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