Spain, Portugal hit by major power outage expected to last hours

The Associated Press

· Posted: Apr 28, 2025 9:32 AM EDT | Last Updated: 7 minutes ago

Spanish powerfulness distributor Red Eléctrica said that restoring powerfulness to ample parts of the state aft a monolithic and unprecedented outage Monday that besides deed Portugal could instrumentality six to 10 hours. 

The institution declined to speculate connected the causes of the blackout. The Portuguese National Cybersecurity Center issued a connection saying determination was nary motion the outage was owed to a cyberattack. 

Eduardo Prieto, caput of operations astatine Red Electrica, told journalists it was unprecedented, calling the lawsuit "exceptional and extraordinary." 

The outage deed crossed Spain and Portugal, including their capitals, knocking retired subway networks, telephone lines, postulation lights and ATM machines.

Play astatine the Madrid Open tennis tourney was suspended. The ATP men's circuit said that 2 singles matches and 1 doubles lucifer were successful advancement erstwhile powerfulness went out

Authorities said the origin was not instantly known.

The Portuguese furniture convened an exigency gathering astatine the premier minister's residence, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited powerfulness distributor Red Electrica to travel efforts astatine restoring grid operations.

The countries person a combined colonisation of implicit 50 cardinal people. It was not instantly wide however galore were affected.

It is uncommon to person specified a wide outage crossed the Iberian Peninsula. Red Electrica said the incidental was being assessed.

A mates of hours later, Spain's energy web relation said it was recovering powerfulness successful the northbound and southbound of the peninsula, which would assistance to progressively reconstruct the energy proviso nationwide.

Portuguese distributor E-Redes said the outage was owed to "a occupation with the European energy system," according to Portuguese paper Expresso. The institution said it was compelled to chopped powerfulness successful circumstantial areas to stabilize the network, according to Expresso.

Spain's nationalist broadcaster RTVE said a large powerfulness outage deed respective regions of the state conscionable aft midday section time, leaving its newsroom, Spain's parliament successful Madrid and subway stations crossed the state successful the dark.

People unreserved to bargain generators

A graph connected Spain's energy web website showing request crossed the state indicated a steep driblet astir 12:15 p.m. section clip from 27,500 megawatts to adjacent 15,000 megawatts.

Video aired connected Spanish tv showed radical evacuating metro stations successful Madrid and bare stations with trains stopped successful Barcelona.

Spain's postulation section is asking citizens to debar utilizing their cars arsenic overmuch arsenic imaginable owed to the powerfulness outage, which has affected postulation lights and electrical roadworthy signage.

In Terrassa, an concern municipality 50 kilometres from Barcelona, stores selling generators were retired of banal aft radical lined up to bargain them.

Portugal's E-Redes said parts of France, which shares its southwest borderline with Spain, besides were affected.

In Portugal, a state of immoderate 10.6 cardinal people, the outage deed the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, arsenic good arsenic bluish and confederate parts of the country. Portuguese constabulary placed much officers connected work to nonstop postulation and header with accrued requests for help, including from radical trapped successful elevators.

Portuguese hospitals and different exigency services switched to generators. Gas stations stopped moving and trains stopped running.

Portugal's National Authority for Emergencies and Civil Protection said backup powerfulness systems were operating.

Several Lisbon subway cars were evacuated, reports said. Also successful Portugal, courts stopped enactment and ATMs and physics outgo systems were affected. Traffic lights successful Lisbon stopped working.

It was not imaginable to marque calls connected mobile telephone networks, though immoderate apps were working.