A massive power outage in Spain and Portugal on Monday impacted approximately 50 million people, leaving many stranded for hours.
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According to The Associated Press, the blackout left millions without phone and internet coverage, as well as access to transportation and ATMs for almost 11 hours.
Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, addressed the nation, admitting that government experts did not know what caused the power outage.
“We have never had a complete collapse in the system,” the prime minister stated. He then said that at approximately 12:33 p.m. local time, Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, equivalent to 60% of the country’s national demand, in just a matter of seconds.
Eduardo Prieto, head of operations at Spanish power distributor Red Eléctrica, said the outage was “exceptional and extraordinary.”
As of 5 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Spain has recovered more than 92% of its power. The prime minister promised that the entire country would have power by the end of the day.
Emergency services in Spain helped evacuate around 35,000 people from over 100 trains that had stopped on the tracks. The prime minister shared that by 11 p.m. on Monday, 11 trains still needed to be evacuated.
This Was the Second Serious European Power Outage in Less Than Six Weeks
AP further reported that the power outage in Spain and Portugal was the second serious European blackout in less than six weeks.
The first incident was on March 20 when a fire shut down Heathrow Airport in the U.K.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Center stated that there was no sign that a cyberattack caused the power outage.
Teresa Riberta, European Commission executive vice president in charge of promoting clean energy, shared that the outage was “one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times.”
“We are analyzing all the potential causes without discarding any hypothesis,” she said.