New Delhi:
Millions of Spain, Portugal and some parts of Southern France have been affected by rare blackouts, causing traffic, trains and regular activities to halt, causing panic among people.
Initially, the cause of the outage was unknown, but Portugal’s power grid operator said that a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” was behind the power outage and could take at least a week for electricity to fully recover.
Cyber attacks or something else
Portuguese grid operator Ren claims that the outage was caused by a “atmospheric phenomenon” due to a “atmospheric phenomenon.” The operator explains, “Due to extreme temperature fluctuations in Spain, there was an abnormal vibration in the very high voltage lines.”
The operator called it “induced atmospheric fluctuations,” leading to vibrations that caused synchronization failures between the systems.
Spain has not yet responded to Ren’s claim.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez held an emergency meeting on the situation, saying the European Commission is in contact with Spain and Portugal over the blackout. The council president said there were “no indications of a cyberattack.”
Live update tracks are here
Chaos, stoppage, no communication
The Spanish government was in a hurry to find a solution and determine the cause of the suspension. Video from the subway shows people walking out of the station in the dark as they use their torch lights on their mobile phones to walk out. Another video shows a train stopping anywhere, showing passengers standing next to the truck when the train is attacked.
just.
Major power outages in Spain, Portugal and parts of France.
From shops, traffic lights, hospitals, airports, phones, trains, all parts of your digital life.pic.twitter.com/etdgtfe9wk
– Massimo (@rainmaker1973) April 28, 2025
The nationwide blackout will prevent Spain from regaining services for intercity trains, the Minister of Transport said.
“We are not expected to recover the circulation of medium and long-distance trains today…we are operating, so once our power supply is restored, we can now resume these services.
“There’s no reporting on (the phone); I can’t call my family, my parents. There’s nothing. I can’t even go to work,” he said.
“This never happened in Spain, so people were unsure,” Carlos Candri, a 19-year-old construction worker who had to leave Madrid’s paralyzed metro system, told AFP.
Not only trains and communication systems, but payment gateways and banking operations were also attacked. In Madrid and elsewhere, customers rushed to withdraw cash from the bank, ramming down streets filled with crowds trying to waste to get signal to mobile. Others were trapped inside elevators and garages.
There were long lines in the supermarket as people quickly started stocking basics after saying it would take a long time to restore service.
All open tennis matches in Madrid are scheduled for today.
People use mobile phone flashlights at dark sports shops after open matches in Madrid are interrupted due to power outages
Photo credit: Reuters
Spanish nuclear power plants also automatically go offline as a safety precaution, with diesel generators keeping them “safe,” the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) said in a statement.
Southwest France was temporarily affected by the outage, but after some time the service recovered, but Spain and Portugal were the worst hits as 48 million people were directly affected. Portugal’s 10.5 million hits were also hit.
The huge power cuts have destroyed flights between Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon, according to Eurocontrol, a European Air Transportation agency.
-Includes input from AFP
