New Delhi:
Millions in Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France were affected by a rare power outage, bringing traffic, trains and regular activities to a halt, causing panic among people.
Initially, the cause of the outage was unknown, but the Portuguese power grid operator said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” was behind the blackout, and it could take at least a week to fully restore electricity.
Cyberattack Or Something Else
REN, Portugal’s grid operator, claims the outage was caused by a fault in Spain’s electricity grid, due to an “atmospheric phenomenon”. The operator explains that, “Due to extreme temperature variations in Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in very high voltage lines.”
The operator called it “induced atmospheric variation”, which led to oscillations which caused synchronisation failures between systems.
Spain is yet to respond to REN’s claim.Â
Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, held an emergency meeting on the situation, and the European Commission said it is in contact with Spain and Portugal over the blackout. The Council’s President said, “There’s no indication of any cyberattack.”
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Chaos, Standstill, No Communication
Spain’s government scrambled to find solutions and determine the cause of the outage. Videos from the subway showed people walking out of train stations in the dark, using their phone torchlight to navigate their way out. Another video showed a train coming to a halt in the middle of nowhere, and passengers disembarking and standing next to the tracks as rail operations were hit.
Just in.
Mass Blackouts in Spain, Portugal and in part of France.
Every single part of digital life from shops, to traffic lights, hospitals, airports, phones, and trains, all down.pic.twitter.com/ETDgtfE9wk
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 28, 2025
A nationwide power outage will prevent Spain from restoring inter-city train services, the transport minister said.
“Today it is not expected that the circulation of medium and long-distance trains will be restored… We are working so that, once the electricity supply is restored, we can resume those services, which will no longer be possible today,” Oscar Puente wrote on X.
“There’s no (phone) coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing: I can’t even go to work,” he said.
“People were stunned, because this had never happened in Spain,” Carlos Candori, a 19-year-old construction worker who had to exit the paralysed metro system in Madrid, told AFP.
Not just trains and communication systems, but payment gateways and banking operations were hit too. In Madrid and elsewhere, customers rushed to withdraw cash from banks, and streets filled with crowds trying in vain to get a signal on their mobiles. Others were trapped in elevators or inside garages.
There were long queues in supermarkets as people started rushing to stock up on basics after operators said it would take a long time to restore services.Â
All matches Madrid Open tennis matches scheduled for today were cancelled, and spectators were exiting the stadium in the dark, pictures showed.
People use their cell phones’ flashlights in a dark sports shop after the Madrid Open matches get suspended due to a power outage
Photo Credit: Reuters
Spain’s nuclear power plants also automatically went offline as a safety precaution, with diesel generators maintaining them in a “safe condition”, the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) said in a statement.
Southwest France was briefly affected by the outage, but services were restored after a while but Spain and Portugal were the worst hit, especially the former, since 48 million people were directly impacted. Portugal’s 10.5 million were hit too.
The huge power cut disrupted flights to and from Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon, the European air traffic organisation Eurocontrol said.
– with inputs from AFP
