Terrifying blackout in Europe: what happened?

Trains at a standstill, subways closed, traffic jams, flights cancelled, telephone communications and Internet access partially cut off, card readers out of service: this unprecedented power cut has plunged the Iberian Peninsula into chaos.

At around 6am on Tuesday morning, Spanish power grid operator REE announced that electricity had been restored to over 99% in mainland Spain, with a production of 21.26 megawatts.

In Portugal, according to the electricity grid operator, some 6.2 million households had power again in the middle of the night, out of a total of 6.5 million.

The blackout began at 12:33pm on Monday. 15 gigawatts, or 60% of demand, were lost in five seconds, said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. At a press conference, the head of state said that “no hypothesis has been ruled out”. Never before had there been such a “collapse” of the Spanish network, he added.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro described the situation as “serious and unprecedented”. According to him, it “probably originated in Spain”.

Regions in the south of France also experienced temporary disruptions, but the authorities claim that service was quickly restored thanks to rapid intervention.

The blackout affected several densely populated urban areas. In Spain, major centers included Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Avila, Murcia, Galicia, Alicante and. In Portugal, the two largest cities, Lisbon and Porto, were affected.

The Iberian Peninsula is home to over 50 million people. However, the authorities refused to specify the number of people affected by the power cut.

Mr. Sánchez said that a “strong oscillation” in the European network was at the root of the failure, but that the cause was still being determined. Several officials also ruled out the possibility of sabotage: “At this stage, there is nothing to indicate that this was a cyber attack”, said the President of the European Council, António Costa, via the X platform.

The Spanish Prime Minister also revealed that supplies had been partially restored thanks to interconnections with France and Morocco.interconnections with France and Morocco, and that gas and hydroelectric power plants have “been reactivated throughout the country”.

Due to the blackout, offices closed and traffic was disrupted in major cities on Monday. In addition, trains ground to a halt in both countries, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded.

According to Euronews, in Madrid, hundreds of people were waiting for a bus to the airport and trying to hitchhike. Some held up improvised signs to persuade drivers to take them.

With cell phone networks largely inaccessible, citizens were unable to make calls or send SMS messages.

Spanish airports were forced to use back-up power sources, causing delays to some flights, according to Aena, which manages 56 airports in Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona. However, the Spanish Prime Minister stressed in the evening that only 344 of the 6,000 flights scheduled in the country on Monday had been cancelled.

in Lisbon, terminals were closed and tourists had to wait outside for flight updates.