A widespread and unexplained power outage has knocked out electricity in most of Spain and Portugal, shutting off traffic lights and causing chaos at airports, train stations and on the roads.
Portugal’s grid operator Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN) said electrical supply was lost across the entire Iberian peninsula, and in parts of France, late on Monday morning (Monday night AEST). By 4pm (1am on Tuesday AEST), it still looked like it could be hours until power was restored.
The outage took out screens, lighting and power sockets, and caused traffic lights and subway systems to suddenly fail. Some power began to trickle back across Spain hours later, but efforts to fully revive the grid and to investigate the cause have not yet been successful.
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In Madrid, traffic piled up on the roads after the lights went out.
“I was driving and suddenly there was no traffic lights … It was a bit of a jungle,” Luis Ibáñez Jiménez told CNN.
“I saw a massive bus coming, and I had to accelerate a lot to go past it.”
The cause of the sudden blackout was unclear, but its impact was dramatic.
Calls to declare national emergency
The cause of the blackout was unclear, but its impact was dramatic: transport hubs shuttered and governments in both countries, which share a population of about 60 million people, hastily co-ordinated a response.
Madrid’s mayor José Luis Martinez Almeida asked people to minimise their movements and only call emergency services if it was truly urgent. He also called on people to stay clear of the roads for emergency workers. Later in the day, Madrid’s emergency services provider urged the country’s government to declare a national emergency.
Portugal’s grid operator said restoring power was a “complex operation”.
“At the moment it is impossible to predict when the situation will be normalised,” it said.
Efforts could stretch into the night.
“The experience of other similar events that have taken place in other countries indicate to us that this process – the total reestablishment of the electrical supply – will take several hours,” Eduardo Prieto, director of services for system operation at Red Eléctrica, told broadcaster La Sexta.
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“We could be talking about six to 10 hours, if everything goes well, until we re-establish supply to every last customer,” he said.
Dozens of Iberian cities, like Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia, are major hubs for transport, business and tourism. Two of the five busiest airports in the European Union in 2023 were Madrid’s and Barcelona’s, according to EU data.
Life goes on, with difficulties
At lunchtime in the Alcântara neighbourhood in Lisbon, the streets were busy with cars and pedestrians but the shops were dark.
Many were still operating using pen, paper and cash to record purchases but there were longer than usual lines as shoppers chatted uneasily while they waited.
It wasn’t exactly panic buying but cans of beans and tuna were in high demand.
One young couple realised that without cash, and with ATMs not working, they didn’t have any way to pay for anything.
Traffic seemed to still be flowing normally and the occasional plane flew overhead on a warm April day.
Barber Hugo Fernandes, 42, was still cutting hair this afternoon but said he probably only had three or four cuts left before the shaver batteries ran out.
“I think a little bit we were already expecting all these sorts of things,” he said.
“We, at times, I think, let things happen and while they don’t happen, I think people think they will never happen.”
Hospitals activate emergency plans
Portugal’s National Institute for Medical Emergencies said it had “activated its contingency plan”, running its telephone and IT systems through a backup generator. Spain’s health ministry said the same process happened in hospitals there.
But flights at major airports in the region were suddenly delayed or cancelled, with travelers scrambling to adapt; online flight trackers reported that several airports saw their frequent departures suddenly halted after midday. Portugal’s flag carrier TAP Air Portugal told people not to travel to the airport until further notice.
Ellie Kenny, a holidaymaker inside Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado airport, said hundreds of people were stood in the dark in queues, with no air conditioning or running water. Shops were only accepting cash, she told CNN.
Spanish train operator Renfe said trains had stopped and departures were canceled. And in subway tunnels, passengers were plunged into darkness. Video posted on social media showed blackened subway cars stuck in standstill on platforms in Madrid, where the metro was suspended and entrances to stations were taped off.
Some parts of southern France, near the Spanish border, felt a more sporadic impact.
Emilie Grandidie, a spokeswoman for France’s electricity transmission operator RTE, told CNN there was “a small power cut” in the French Basque Country.
“It lasted only a couple of minutes and was restored very quickly,” she said.
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