Power cuts have impacted as many as 50 million people across Spain and Portugal – causing huge disruption to public transport, airports and vital telecommunications networks.
Madrid‘s main airport has been hit, the city’s subway evacuated and traffic lights in the city turned off following the sudden interruption to the electricity supply around midday, with similar scenes reported across the country and further afield. The Lisbon metro is also no longer running, while broadband, 5G and landline telephones are reported to be down in both countries. Spanish electricity firm Red Electrica said the entire Iberian peninsula has been affected by the outage, adding that it could take as long as 10 hours to restore power to the entire region.
The nation’s INCIBE security agency is also investigating the possibility that the power cuts could have been caused by a cyber attack, but Portugal’s grid operator has attributed the developing crisis to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”.
Have you been affected? Let us know at webnews@mirror.co.uk
Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), Portugal’s national grid operator, claimed in a statement this afternoon that Portugal was affected by a fault in the Spanish grid related to what it said was a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”. The fault, representatives added, were caused by extreme temperature fluctuations that created “anomalous oscillations” in very high-voltage lines.
The representatives termed the phenomenon “induced atmospheric variation”, which caused the oscillations and then synchronisation failures between power systems. The chain of events caused disturbances across the European network, which straddles a number of nations. The network could take an entire week to fully normalise, REN warned.
Spain’s state-run railway company, Renfe, said the nation’s “entire National Electricity Grid was cut off” at 12.30 local time (11.30 BST), forcing trains to suddenly stop and halting departures at all stations. Some southern areas of France also reported being affected by the blackout.
Disruption to traffic lights has created a chaotic situation on busy city roads, with drivers in Madrid urged not to use their cars unless absolutely necessary. Spain’s national traffic authority said: “Avoid moving as much as possible and be very careful on the road.”
Airports in Spain and Portugal say they have been hit by the power cuts, though many already have generators installed as a contingency plan. Spanish air traffic is currently said to be operating at “half capacity”, with issues primarily affecting boarding bridges.
Arrivals and departures boards at airports including El Prat in Barcelona and Madrid Airport currently show delays of up to an hour. Passengers stuck in tunnels in some parts of Spain’s rail network are meanwhile being evacuated by foot.
An update from Red Electrica at 12.40pm said power was being restored to the north and south of Spain, adding that teams were working to “gradually” restore the electricity supply.
Cash machines and card payments have also been knocked offline, causing problems for cafes, shops and restaurants as customers attempted to settle up at lunchtime.
A graph on Spain’s electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a steep drop around 12.15pm from 27,500MW to near 15,000MW.
Portugal’s government said their power cuts appeared to stem from problems in Spain, with efforts ongoing to restore power.
No issues have been reported in Gibraltar, which is so far believed to be the only part of the Iberian peninsula not impacted. Authorities in the British overseas territory said they are “closely monitoring the situation”.
The Canary Islands, which are located 850 miles southwest of mainland Spain, are also unaffected. British tennis star Jacob Fearnley was meanwhile forced off court as play was suspended at the Madrid Open due to the power outage.
The third-round tie between Mr Fearnley and Grigor Dimitrov had reached a critical stage, with the Brit breaking the 15th seed’s serve to stay in the match when a loss of power hit scoreboards and the camera above the court.
The positioning of the camera when it lost power meant the match could not continue even with line judges, as it was stuck in the eyeline of the players.
After staying on court, the pair were eventually taken inside to wait for the issue to be fixed. Play remained suspended at 2pm this afternoon.
Get email updates with the day’s biggest stories