Confirming the widespread outage, Spain’s electricity grid operator, Red Electrica, said that it is working to restore power. The company added that the causes of the blackouts are being investigated.
“We are beginning to recover power in the north and south of the peninsula, which is key to gradually addressing the electricity supply,” Red Electrica posted on X (formerly Twitter).
➡️ We began to recover tension in the north and southern peninsular, key to progressively attending the supply of electricity.
➡️ It is a process that entails the gradual energization of the transport network as the generation groups are coupled.We continue …
– Electric Red (@redelectricaree) April 28, 2025
The Spanish and Portuguese governments convened emergency cabinet meetings after the outage, which also briefly affected a part of France, which borders northeastern Spain.
According to a report by the BBC, Spain’s national railway company, Renfe, announced that the entire National Electricity Grid was shut down at 12:30 PM local time (11:30 BST), causing a complete halt in train services with no departures from any stations.
Play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended, forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.
Spanish radio stations said part of the Madrid underground was being evacuated. There were traffic jams at Madrid city centre as traffic lights stopped working, Cader Ser Radio station reported.
Hundreds of people stood outside office buildings on Madrid’s streets and there was a heavy police presence around key buildings, directing traffic as well as driving along central atriums with lights, according to a Reuters witness.
One of four tower buildings in Madrid that houses the British Embassy had been evacuated, the witness added.
Local radio reported people trapped in stalled metro cars and elevators.
Portuguese police said traffic lights were affected across the country, the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto, and trains were not running.
Lisbon’s subway transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa said the subway was at a standstill with people still inside the trains, according to Publico newspaper.
A source at Portugal’s TAP Air said Lisbon airport was running on back-up generators, while AENA, which manages 46 airports in Spain, reported flight delays around the country.
(With inputs from Reuters)
