Featured Image Credit: PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / Contributor via Getty
Chaos is spreading across Europe, with Spain and Portugal among the hubs that have been hit by a massive power outage that could leave them without power for up to a week. On April 28 at 12:33 p.m. (CET), a massive outage across the Iberian peninsula and parts of southern France led to Andorra, Portugal, Spain, and southern France going dark.
Although Spanish electrical operator Red Eléctrica originally said power would be back online "between six and ten hours," the Portuguese network operator warned it could take up to a week to fix the problem.
As reported by The Independent, a "rare atmospheric phenomenon" is thought to be behind the mass outage, which is currently affecting Capital cities including Madrid and Lisbon, with others like Seville, Barcelona, and Valencia also being left in the dark.
As well as there being no internet or electricity, there are travel troubles at airports, traffic lights aren't working in Madrid, and parts of its underground have had to be evacuated.
Advert
Pictures show massive crowds gathering at airports and train stations, as transport grinds to a halt. There are similar scenes of people queuing at cash machines in Lisbon due to a lack of ability to pay by card. Elsewhere, footage of passengers having to walk down railway tracks in Bilbao has gone viral.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galuschenko has vowed to help, explaining: "We are ready to share the knowledge and experience, including those gained during the systematic Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure."
Still, EU Council President Antonio Costa has reiterated there's no evidence of it being a cyber attack. Costa has said he's been in contact with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Portuguese PM Luís Montenegro.
Considering REN warned it could take a week to achieve normalisation of the system, we're bracing for more wild stories and scenes of bedlam.
Gente bajando a pie del funicular de Artxanda en Bilbao#apagon pic.twitter.com/PthoY01CNq
— Javi Regalado (@djobi71) April 28, 2025
One woman told The Independent how her son was trapped on a roller coaster for half an hour in 'fierce' heat at Spain's PortAventura World, and was then forced to walk back to their hotel due to a lack of buses.
With things descending into chaos, the Mayor of Madrid has asked residents to stay off the roads and only phone emergency services if it's "truly urgent."
This is thought to be Europe’s largest ever power cut, leaving millions without vital services.
Speaking to The Telegraph, energy analyst Kathryn Porter said that a reliance on solar energy might've left the Iberian power grid vulnerable to faults and cyber attacks: "If you have a grid fault, it can cause a frequency imbalance and in a low-inertia environment the frequency can change much faster.
“If you have had a significant grid fault in one area, or a cyber attack, or whatever it may be, the grid operators therefore have less time to react. That can lead to cascading failures if you cannot get it under control quickly enough.
“The growing reliance on solar has pushed inertia on the grid to the point where it does become more difficult to respond to disruptions such as significant transmission faults."
Although some power has been restored to substations in the north, south, and west of the Iberian Peninsula, the fact that energy companies are warning it's a case of doing it slowly but surely doesn't fill us with the most confidence.
