Millions without power as outages hit Spain, Portugal and parts of France, Spanish officials say
LONDON -- Millions of people in Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France lost power on Monday following a "severe disruption" in the European electrical system, the Spanish prime minister said.
The cause of the disruption is still unknown, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in remarks Monday evening local time.
However, Red Eléctrica -- the corporation that operates the national electricity grid in Spain -- said in a post on X that 82.4% of the Iberian Peninsula had recovered electricity on Monday night, and over 99% of the national substations were operational.
The Spanish government said that it called an emergency crisis meeting on Monday to fix the situation as soon as possible.
The interior minister of Spain declared a national emergency in multiple regions, including the communities of Madrid and Andalucía, due to the power outage.
The outage began midday Monday, when 15 gigawatts of generation was "suddenly lost from the system" in just five seconds, according to Sanchez, who said that all potential causes of the disappearance are being analyzed.
There is no evidence of a cyberattack, according to European Council President Antonio Costa.
Red Eléctrica said it was working on restoring power to mainland Spain and Portugal.
"Supply is being progressively restored in all electrical areas of the territory, with 45% of the substation parks of the transmission network already energized," the company said in an update earlier Monday evening.
Red Eléctrica had previously said that electricity should be fully restored within six to 10 hours.
The company said it was also working to provide power from generators, which is part of the procedure for restoring power supply.
Sanchez said during a press conference Monday evening that authorities are working to determine the origins of the power outage.
"We are working on knowing the origins and the reason of this incident," Sanchez said in Spanish. "We are using all of our resources to solve the issue."
Authorities, meanwhile, asked people to stay at home and to avoid circulating while emergency generators were also being put in place.
"Plans to restore the electricity supply have been activated in collaboration with companies in the sector following the zero that occurred in the peninsular system," Red Eléctrica wrote in a post to X earlier in the day on Monday. "The causes are being analyzed and all resources are being dedicated to solving it."
Airports in the country were not closed, but they are seeing massive delays. Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon was seeing the most canceled and delayed flights of any airport in the world, according to FlightAware, with Barcelona-El Prat Airport and Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport not far behind. Portugal's main international airports in Lisbon and Porto were expected to resume normal service by late Monday local time, officials said.
The outage impacted more than 100 trains in Spain, Sanchez said. The armed forces helped approximately 35,000 passengers who had been trapped, he said. Full train services are not expected to resume on Tuesday.
Hospitals in Madrid and Barcelona canceled routine medical treatment on Monday though are expected to partially resume normal operations on Tuesday, officials said.
The power outages impacted the Madrid Open, with tennis matches being canceled Monday "in order to guarantee the safety of the players, fans and personnel," the tournament said in a statement.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
