1 week Ago By Evening Standard
Vast areas of Spain and Portugal have been hit by a serious power outage, causing transport services to grind to a halt. Authorities are working to evacuate parts of the Madrid underground, with large traffic jams reported in the city centre after traffic lights stopped working. Blackouts have been reported from Madrid to Lisbon.
Spain's national railway company, Renfe, said the country’s “entire National Electricity Grid was cut off” at 12.30pm local time. Trains “stopped” and were “without departures” at all stations, they added.
Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica said it was working with energy companies to restore power. It said: “Plans to restore the electricity supply have been activated in collaboration with companies in the sector following the zero that occurred in the peninsular system. “The causes are being analysed and all resources are being dedicated to solving it.
We will continue to report.” Spain and Portugal have a combined population of over 50 million people. It is not immediately clear how many people are affected.
An official briefed on the situation in Spain told Politico that a cyberattack had “not been ruled out” and that investigations into the cause of the outage were ongoing. Portuguese distributor E-Redes said the outage was due to "a problem with the European electricity system," according to Portuguese newspaper Expresso. The company said it was compelled to cut power in specific areas to stabilise the network, according to Expresso.
E-Redes said parts of France also were affected..
