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Mystery/ What is suspected to have caused the massive power outage in Spain and Portugal?
2025-04-29 10:08:03 / BOTA
Electricity was restored to most of Spain and Portugal on April 29 after a massive blackout hit the Iberian peninsula, leaving passengers stranded on trains and hundreds of elevators, while millions of people were left without signal on their phones and without access to the internet.
Energy operator REE said electricity had been restored to more than 90 percent of mainland Spain in the early hours of Tuesday. Lights were back on in Madrid and the Portuguese capital.
Almost no corner of the peninsula, which has a combined population of nearly 60 million, was spared the power outage. However, it is still not known why the power outage occurred, although rumors spread on social media that there had been a cyberattack.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the source of the outage “is likely to be in Spain.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said “all possible causes” were being analyzed and warned the public “not to speculate” because of the risk of “disinformation.”
Sanchez said that about 15 gigawatts of electricity, more than half of consumption at the time, "suddenly disappeared" within about five seconds.
The Spanish prime minister was unable to say when power would be fully restored in Spain and warned that some workers would have to stay home on Tuesday. Portuguese Prime Minister Montenegro said power in Portugal would be restored “within a few hours.”
About 6.2 million of Portugal's 6.5 million households were restored to power overnight, the national electricity grid operator said.
The power outage also briefly affected southwest France, while in Morocco there were disruptions to the services of some internet operators and airport check-in systems.
Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez said the power outage at noon on Monday caused "serious disruptions" and "millions of euros in economic losses in businesses, companies and industries."
The European Commission said it was in contact with Spain and Portugal about the power outage. Meanwhile, European Council President Antonio Costa wrote in X that “there is no indication of any cyberattack.”
Power outages caused the cancellation of many flights from Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon, according to the European air traffic control organization, Eurocontrol.
Other countries around the world have also faced massive power outages in recent years.
There were power outages in Tunisia in September 2023, in Sri Lanka in August 2020, and in Argentina and Uruguay in June 2019. India also faced a massive power outage in July 2012.
In Europe, in November 2006, 10 million people were left without electricity for an hour in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. The outage was caused by problems with the network in Germany./rel
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