Electricity had been restored to nearly 90 percent of mainland Spain early Tuesday, the REE power operator said. Lights came on again in Madrid and in Portugal’s capital.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the source of the outage was “probably in Spain”. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said “all the potential causes” were being analysed and warned the public “not to speculate” because of the risk of “misinformation”.
Sanchez was unable to say when power would be completely restored in Spain and warned that some workers would have to stay home Tuesday. Montenegro said Portugal’s power would be back “within hours”.
The outage rippled briefly into southwest France while Morocco saw disruption to some internet providers and airport check-in systems.
“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.
In Madrid alone 286 rescue operations were carried out to free people trapped in lifts, regional authorities said.
Railway stations in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Seville and four other major cities were to be kept open all night so that stranded passengers could sleep there.
‘Serious disruption’
The European Commission said it was in contact with Spain and Portugal over the crisis. European Council President Antonio Costa said on X: “There are no indications of any cyberattack”.
“No matter what happens, we are always ready to assist and support our friends,“ he said on X.
France affected
Student Laia Montserrat left school when the lights went out.
The internet activity monitoring site Netblocks told AFP the blackout caused a “loss of much of the country’s digital infrastructure”. It said web connections plunged to just 17 percent of normal usage.
Massive blackouts have affected other countries around the world in recent years.
In Europe, in November 2006, 10 million people were left without power for an hour in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. That was caused by a failure in Germany’s grid.
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