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 affected parts of south-west 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 his interior, finance, environment and transport ministers.
As power began gradually to be restored by the middle of the afternoon, Sánchez called a second emergency cabinet meeting at the government headquarters in Moncloa in Madrid, his office said in a Telegram message.
Red Eléctrica described the incident as “exceptional and totally extraordinary”. It said it had brought back power in parts of the the north and south of the country, but it could take between six and 10 hours to fully restore the electricity supply.
Eduardo Prieto, the company’s head of operations, said it “cannot speculate right now on the causes” of the blackout, adding that everything was being done “to shed light” on the origin of the power cut.
The government said in a statement it was “working to determine the origin and impact and is dedicating all resources to resolve it as quickly as possible”.
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.
In Brussels, Teresa Ribera, a European Commission vice-president and a former Spanish ecology minister, urged people to be patient while waiting for power to the restored. She said there was as yet no evidence the outage was intentional.
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 12.33am (11.33 GMT), plus part of France.
The French high-voltage operator RTE said parts of the south-west of the country had been briefly affected but power was restored by mid-afternoon. It said it could export power to Spain “as soon as the Iberian grid has the technical capacity to receive it”.
Spain’s railway operator Adif said the power cut halted trains across the entire country, with services not set to resume until at least 6pm. The airports operator Aena said “several incidents” had occurred at Spanish airports. Mobile phone networks went down and internet access was cut.
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,” a cabinet minister, António Leitão Amaro, told the national news agency Lusa. Lisbon metro carriages were evacuated and ATMs and electronic payment systems cut out.
In Madrid and other cities, traffic lights ceased to function, causing gridlock as vehicles slowed to avoid collisions, while metros were also halted. Spain’s national road authority, DGT, urged motorists to avoid using the roads as much as possible.
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. The commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said she had spoken with Sánchez and the EU’s executive would “coordinate efforts and share information to help restore power”.
With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
