Southern Europe was hit by a major electricity outage affecting millions of people in the Iberian Peninsula and beyond, paralysing infrastructure, communication and transportation.
While normal life ground to a halt shortly after noon on April 28, the authorities were still looking for the reason for the general blackout.
A cyberattack by a hostile entity was not ruled out as a possibility and technical teams were investigating the matter.
Spain and Portugal appeared most affected, with all regions in Spain suffering under the blackout except for the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands. They were less integrated with the rest of the national grid, while Portugal saw its major cities and large parts of the country lose power.
In France, the outage was more limited and the grid operator was able to restore electricity by the afternoon of April 28.
With the power out, Spain and Portugal experienced widespread failures in traffic lights, train stations, airports, shops and buildings.
Local media said there were numerous incidents of people trapped in stalled trains, metros and elevators.
Many bars, restaurants and shops were forced to close, with fridges, freezers and air-conditioning no longer functioning.
People were urged not to use their cars except in cases of extreme necessity, due to the danger of accidents.
Company production lines also ground to a halt and there were reports of issues with ATM machines.
The Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended.
The exact moment Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe lost power. pic.twitter.com/B0O4oQDHfh
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) April 28, 2025
Hospitals had to switch to emergency generators and activate contingency plans, suspending all non-priority activity.
According to Red Eléctrica, the public company responsible for the grid in Spain, from 1:00 pm, the power supply began to recover in the north and south of the peninsula, “key to progressively meeting the supply of electricity”.
It was expected this process could take up to 10 hours to restore fully operations.
“All plans for the phased restoration of energy supply are being activated, in co-ordination with European energy producers and operators,” a spokesperson said.
Telecom company Vodaphone warned that if the power restoration period “is excessively prolonged, it is expected that there will be a deterioration in the capacity of our networks”.
The operations chief of the Spanish power grid told news agency Reuters that never in its history had there been such a widespread outage.
Crisis committees were set up by Madrid and Lisbon and many at the regional and local level to deal with the potentially damaging effects of the loss of power.
Both Spain and Portugal, as well as their capitals of Madrid and Lisbon, are currently suffering from a massive power outage, effecting airports, hospitals, power plants, subways, traffic lights, and other critical infrastructure across Western Europe. The cause of the outage is… pic.twitter.com/dBWfgwvXz0
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 28, 2025
