Power returning to most of Spain, Portugal after ‘pure chaos’ of massive blackout
Authorities were trying to establish what caused the outage that brought most of Spain and Portugal to a standstill
Power was almost fully restored to Spain and Portugal on Tuesday, although many questions remained about what caused one of Europe’s most severe blackouts that grounded flights, paralysed metro systems, disrupted mobile communications and shut down ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.
By 7am, more than 99 per cent of energy demand in Spain had been restored, the country’s electricity operator REE said. Portuguese grid operator REN said on Tuesday morning all the 89 power substations were back online since late last night and power had been restored to all 6.4 million customers.
By Tuesday morning, life was returning to normal: schools and offices reopened in Spain, traffic eased along the capital’s main arteries and public transport restarted after significant delays.
Spanish authorities did not provide new explanations for what caused the blackout, one of the most serious to ever take place in Europe.
In a televised address on Monday night, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the power grid for the Southern European nation of 49 million people lost 15 gigawatts – equivalent to 60 per cent of its national demand – in just five seconds.
“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” Sánchez said, adding that his government will set up a commission to investigate the blackout.
“All the necessary measures will be taken to ensure that this does not happen again,” he told a press conference.
