Madrid (AFP) – Lights flickered back to life in Spain and Portugal early Tuesday after a massive blackout hit the Iberian peninsula, stranding passengers in trains and hundreds of elevators while millions saw phone and internet coverage die. More than 80 percent of Spain’s national electricity supply had been restored by early Tuesday, the REE power operator said. Lights came on again in Madrid and in Portugal’s capital. Barely a corner of the peninsula, which has a joint population of almost 60 million people, escaped. However, no firm cause for the shutdown has yet emerged, though wild rumors spread on messaging networks about cyberattacks.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro stated that the source of the outage was “probably in Spain.” Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez mentioned that “all the potential causes” were being analyzed and warned the public “not to speculate” due to the risk of “misinformation.” Sanchez revealed that about 15 gigawatts of electricity, more than half of the power being consumed at the time, “suddenly disappeared” in about five seconds. He was unable to say when power would be completely restored in Spain and indicated that some workers would have to stay home Tuesday. Montenegro noted that Portugal’s power would be back “within hours.” Power was restored overnight to around 6.2 million households in Portugal out of 6.5 million, according to the national electricity grid operator.
The outage rippled briefly into southwest France while Morocco experienced disruption to some internet providers and airport check-in systems. People were “stunned,” according to Carlos Candori, a 19-year-old construction worker who had to exit the paralyzed Madrid metro system. “This has never happened in Spain,” he said. “There’s no (phone) coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing: I can’t even go to work,” he told AFP.
In Madrid and cities across Spain and Portugal, panicked customers rushed to withdraw cash from banks, and streets filled with crowds floundering for a phone signal. Long lines formed for taxis and buses. With stop lights knocked out, police struggled to keep densely congested traffic moving, and authorities urged motorists to stay home. In Madrid alone, 286 rescue operations were carried out to free people trapped in lifts, according to regional authorities. Trains were halted across the country, and late Monday, the transport minister reported that there were still 11 trains with stranded passengers who needed help. Railway stations in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Seville, and four other major cities were kept open all night so that stranded passengers could sleep there. Spain’s nuclear power plants automatically went offline as a safety precaution, with diesel generators maintaining them in a “safe condition,” the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) stated.
Sanchez described the blackout, which hit just after midday, as causing “serious disruption” for millions and “economic losses in businesses, in companies, in industries.” The European Commission said it was in contact with Spain and Portugal over the crisis. European Council President Antonio Costa stated on X, “There are no indications of any cyberattack.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered support in a call to Sanchez, noting that his country had become specialized in such emergencies after three years of Russia attacking its electrical grid. “No matter what happens, we are always ready to assist and support our friends,” he said on X.
The huge power cut disrupted flights to and from Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon, as the European air traffic organization Eurocontrol reported. Transport chaos also gripped Spain’s second city, Barcelona, where locals and tourists alike flooded the streets in an attempt to find out what had happened. Student Laia Montserrat left school when the lights went out. “As the internet wasn’t coming back, they told us to go home… (but) there weren’t trains either,” she told AFP. “Now we don’t know what to do.”
The internet activity monitoring site Netblocks reported that the blackout caused a “loss of much of the country’s digital infrastructure,” stating that web connections plunged to just 17 percent of normal usage. Spain’s El Pais newspaper reported that hospitals used backup generators to keep critical wards going, but some units were left without power. Massive blackouts have affected other countries around the world in recent years, including Tunisia in September 2023, Sri Lanka in August 2020, and Argentina and Uruguay in June 2019. In July 2012, India experienced a vast blackout. In Europe, in November 2006, 10 million people were left without power for an hour across France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, caused by a failure in Germany’s grid.
© 2024 AFP
