Samantha Mythen
SPAIN has declared a state of emergency after a massive power cut left the country in the dark for more than eight hours.
Many areas of the country are still without power, mobile coverage and running water, with only 20% of Spain’s power capacity restored, national operator Red Eléctrica said on social media platform X.
By 9pm, power is only just coming back to parts of Madrid. Yet, the trains and metro in the capital are still not open to the public. The Madrid Open tennis match was also suspended earlier in the day.
Some people have reported that their power is back, but their internet signals remain intermittent. The seaside town of Estepona has power back but just an hour by car to Málaga and the city remains dark.
Meanwhile, electricity has been restored for 750,000 customers in Portugal said national provider REN.
While the cause of the blackout is still unknown, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez held a press conference this evening and told the public not to speculate.
He said a ‘strong technical fluctuation in the European electricity system led to the blackout,’ but there is ‘no conclusive information’ on the cause yet.
Portugese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said there was ‘no indication’ the power cut had been caused by a cyber attack.
Various regions across Spain, including Madrid, Galicia, Aragon and Castilla-La Mancha have suspended teaching activities on Tuesday, but students are still able to attend school grounds.
The day’s unprecedented events indicate how vulnerable national electricity systems can be, with massive blackouts affecting countries around the world in recent years.
A failure in German’s grid left 10 million people without power for an hour in Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy in November 2006.
University of Strathclyde professor Keith Bell said it was unlikely today’s power outage was caused by a single fault.
Power operators can usually copy with any single outage in a system called N-1 secure.
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