Chaos in Spain and Portugal after major power cut knocks out phone lines, traffic lights and subways
by Sonia Sharma · ChronicleLiveA major power cut has hit Spain and Portugal, knocking out subway networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines.
Spanish generator Red Electrica said the incident on Monday had affected the Iberian peninsula and is being assessed, adding that restoring power to large parts of the country could take six to 10 hours. Such a widespread outage is rare.
The Portuguese Cabinet convened an emergency meeting at the prime minister's residence, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Red Electrica to follow efforts to restore power to the grid. The countries have a combined population of more than 50 million people, but it was not immediately clear how many were affected.
Spain's public broadcaster, RTVE, said a major power outage hit several regions of the country just after midday local time, leaving its newsroom, Spain's parliament in Madrid and subway stations across the country in the dark. A graph on Spain's electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a steep drop at around 12.15pm from 27,500MW to near 15,000MW.
A couple of hours later, Spain's electricity network operator said it was recovering power in the north and south of the peninsula, which would help to progressively restore the electricity supply nationwide. Meanwhile, in Portugal, a country of some 10.6 million people, the outage hit the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country.
Portugal's government said the incident appeared to stem from problems outside the country, an official told national news agency Lusa. "It looks like it was a problem with the distribution network, apparently in Spain. It's still being ascertained," Cabinet Minister Leitao Amaro was quoted as saying.
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.
Videos shown on Spanish television showed people evacuating metro stations in Madrid, and empty stations with trains stopped in Barcelona. Spain's traffic department asked citizens to avoid using their cars as much as possible due to the power outage, which affected traffic lights and electric road signs.
In Terrassa, an industrial town 31 miles (50km) from Barcelona, stores selling generators were out of stock after people queued up to buy them. Portuguese police placed more officers on duty to direct traffic and cope with increased requests for help, including from people trapped in lifts.
Portuguese hospitals and other emergency services switched to generators. Portugal's National Authority for Emergencies and Civil Protection said back-up power systems were operating.
Several Lisbon subway cars were evacuated, reports said. Also in Portugal, courts stopped work and ATMs and electronic payment systems were affected. Traffic lights in Lisbon stopped working. It was not possible to make calls on mobile phone networks, though some apps were working.
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