Millions of people on Monday were impacted after electricity was cut off across Spain, Portugal, Belgium and part of southern France in a massive blackout. According to reports, phone lines were down, and trains and flights were highly affected due to the outage.
Working to identify origin of blackout
Following the blackout, the Portuguese cabinet called an emergency meeting at the prime minister’s residence. According to AP, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Red Eléctrica to follow efforts.
Both countries have a combined population of over 50 million people.
The reason behind the outage was not immediately identified. However, Spain’s government is working “to identify origin” of the blackout, the PM’s office said.
Taking to X, Spain’s state electricity network operator Red Electrica claimed that it managed to restore power in the north and south of the country.
Electricity restored in France
A French operator said that southwest France was hit by a brief power cut but it was restored. Meanwhile, the European Union said that it is in contact with Spain and Portugal to understand the cause of the blackout.
Trains, flights and telecommunication affected
Barajas international airport in Madrid was left without power, and other airports in the region have also come to a standstill.
According to Euronews Portugal, several passengers were stranded in the metros in Spain and Portugal, with trains stuck in the tunnels between stations.
Blackout began around 12:30 pm local time
Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE reported that the blackout began around 12:30 pm local time, impacting critical infrastructure such as Spain’s Parliament, metro stations nationwide, and even RTVE’s own newsroom. In Barcelona and nearby towns, residents flooded neighbourhood WhatsApp groups with reports of the blackout.
In Portugal, power failures hit Lisbon and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country. Portuguese distributor E-Redes attributed the disruption to “a problem with the European electricity system,” according to local media outlet Expresso. The company said it had to cut electricity in specific regions to stabilise the network. Reports indicated that parts of France were also affected.
The outages caused widespread disruptions: mobile phone networks were largely down for voice calls, though some messaging apps remained functional. In Lisbon, the subway reportedly ground to a halt and traffic lights in the city center failed, leading to traffic chaos.
Authorities in both countries have yet to provide an estimate of how many people were affected or how long it will take to fully restore services.
