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LAST UPDATE | 28 Apr
LARGE PARTS OF Spain and Portugal were hit by a massive blackout, leaving millions of people without power.
The major outage impacted public transport since earlier this afternoon, mobile phone networks and internet across the Iberian Peninsula, with a part of southern France also affected.
As of Monday night, almost 50% of power is said to have been restored to Spain – although Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that some people may have to stay home from work tomorrow.
The cause of the outage is not yet known, and president of the European Council Antonio Costa said earlier there are “no indications” that it is the result of a cyber attack.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has likewise said he has no “conclusive information” about the cause of the blackout – though Portugal’s grid operator has suggested it may have been caused by a “rare” atmospheric phenomenon.
Portugal’s Prime Minister suggested that the blackout originated in Spain.
Hi there – Jane Moore here. Updates on the blackout that is affecting Spain and Portugal are coming in fast.
I’ll be bringing them to you as they happen throughout the afternoon.
Reports of the widespread power outage first began to emerge at around 12pm.
Subway networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines have all been knocked out due to the outage.
José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the mayor of Madrid, asked residents to stay put where possible.
“I ask all residents of Madrid to keep their movements to an absolute minimum and, if at all possible, to remain where they are. We want to keep all roads clear,” Martínez-Almeida said in a video posted on social media.
Speaking from the integrated emergency security centre of Madrid, he said that on top of traffic lights being off, tunnels of certain highways have had to be closed.
The mayor also asked residents to only call emergency services if it is “truly urgent”.
“If emergency calls go unanswered, go to the police and the fire stations in person, where they will try to deal with all the emergencies which may present themselves.”
European Council President Antonio Costa said he has been in touch with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro about the power outages.
“Grid operators in both countries are working on finding the cause, and on restoring the electricity supply,” he said, adding that at this point, there are “no indications of any cyber attack”.
I am in touch with @sanchezcastejon and @LMontenegro_PT about the widespread power outages in Spain and Portugal today.
— António Costa (@eucopresident) April 28, 2025
Grid operators in both countries are working on finding the cause, and on restoring the electricity supply.
At this point, there are no indications of any…
European air traffic organisation Eurocontrol has said the power cut has also disrupted air traffic, affecting flights to and from Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon.
The organisation said it was still too early to say how many flights would be affected.
Both Lisbon Airport and Madrid Airport are advising passengers that the power cut is causing “operation constraints” and that they should contact their airline before heading to either airport.
Portugal’s electricity grid operator has said it is still impossible to know how long Portugal will be without power.
“At this time it is still impossible to predict when the situation will be normalised,” Portuguese operator REN said in a statement, adding it had “all resources deployed” to resolve the blackout.
Here are some photos showing some of the impact in Spain.
The power outage has also disrupted the Madrid Open.
The outage struck after world number four Coco Gauff and rising Russian star Mirra Andreeva booked their quarter-finals spots.
On Centre Court, the match between Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov and British qualifier Jacob Fearnley was suspended when the Bulgarian was leading 6-4, 5-4 with his opponent serving to stay in the match.
Scoreboards were affected and a camera operating on the court lost power, leading to play being suspended.
The Madrid Open organisers have just confirmed that the rest of today’s matches have been cancelled due to the power cut.
Por motivos ajenos a la organización y para garantizar la seguridad, el apagón general que ha afectado a España este lunes 28 de abril, obliga a suspender tanto la sesión de día como de noche en el Mutua Madrid Open.#MMOPEN
— #MMOPEN (@MutuaMadridOpen) April 28, 2025
—•—
For reasons beyond the control of the… pic.twitter.com/zjPJP2h5i7
Staying on the subject of sport, there is a possibility that the Champions League quarter final between Barcelona and Inter Milan could be called off as a result of the power cut.
The match is due to kick off at 8pm on Wednesday night.
This is particularly notable, because it is only the second time that Barca and Inter have met in the direct elimination phase of the Champions League.
The first time was in 2010, when the first leg was played under a cloud of ash following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull.
The volcanic ash meant that Barcelona had to take a 10-hour bus journey, due to flights being halted.
In the end, Inter edged out the title holders and reached the Champions League final 3-2 on aggregate. They went on to win it.
Electricity has returned to parts of northern, southern and western Spain, grid operator Red Eléctrica has confirmed.
In a statement, the operator said it is working to restore power supply throughout the country “as quickly as possible”.
“We are coordinating with the relevant authorities and agencies, as well as with companies in the sector,” it said.
Red Eléctrica said it is focused on providing power to generating units so they can start up and propagate power to the grid and other units.
“Power has already been restored at substations in several areas in the north, south, and west of the peninsula, and consumers in these areas are beginning to be supplied.
“All of this work will gradually allow the electricity supply to be restored throughout the peninsula.”
🔵 Información actualizada sobre el proceso de recuperación de la tensión en el sistema eléctrico peninsular. ⬇️https://t.co/8E0j2tuX4z pic.twitter.com/cYI7fc7qWW
— Red Eléctrica (@RedElectricaREE) April 28, 2025
Graeme McQueen, Media Relations Manager at daa, the operator of Dublin Airport, has told The Journal:
“While Dublin Airport is operating as normal today (Monday), we are aware of a power outage in parts of Spain and Portugal, which is impacting on airport operations and flight schedules.
As of 4pm, two inbound flights from Lisbon to Dublin and one outbound flight from Dublin to Lisbon have been cancelled.
“Further disruption over the remainder of the day is possible and, as always, passengers should check directly with their airline for updates regarding their flight.”
We still don’t know the cause of the widespread blackout.
However, Portugal’s grid operator REN said that interruptions to the country’s power supply were the result of a “fault in the Spanish electricity grid”.
The blackout was related to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”, REN said.
“Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior or Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’,” REN said in a statement.
REN added that restoring power to all of Portugal again “could take up to a week”.
Here is some of the interruption caused in Lisbon, in pictures:
Juanma Moreno, the president of Andalucia’s regional government, has called for a national emergency to be declared due to the power blackouts.
“We ask the Government of Spain to declare a national emergency to strengthen coordination throughout the territory affected by the power outage,” he said in a statement on X.
🔴 Pedimos al Gobierno de España la declaración de emergencia nacional para reforzar la coordinación en todo el territorio afectado por el #apagón.
— Juanma Moreno (@JuanMa_Moreno) April 28, 2025
En #Andalucía elevamos el Plan Territorial de Emergencia de Protección Civil a situación operativa 2.
PRUDENCIA, por favor.
Spain’s transport minister Oscar Puente has said inter-city train services will not be restored before tomorrow.
“Today it is not expected that the circulation of medium and long-distance trains will be restored,” Puente wrote on X, adding that this was due to
“We are working so that, once the electricity supply is restored, we can resume those services, which will no longer be possible today.”
He said that it will take time to restore the control systems once the power supply is restored “and restart all the systems that guarantee safety”.
“We will also have to reposition most of the trains,” he said, adding that the goal is “to be able to provide service tomorrow if we recover power today”.
He said that some train stations will remain open overnight “to make it easier for people who need to take a train and have no other option to stay overnight”.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said there is still no “conclusive information” about the cause of the blackout.
In a televised address in the last half hour, Sánchez said Spain is aiming to restore power nationwide “soon”.
He said interconnections with neighbouring France and Morocco have already partially restored supply, while “combined cycles and hydroelectric plants throughout the country have also been reactivated, which should allow us to recover the supply across Spain soon”.
Three flights have been cancelled at Dublin Airport as a result of the widespread blackouts.
Two inbound flights from Lisbon and one outbound flight to Lisbon have been cancelled as of 4pm today, a spokesperson for daa, the operator of Dublin Airport, said.
The spokesman warned that further disruption over the remainder of the day is possible and said that passengers should check with their airline for any updates regarding their flights.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called on his country to show “responsibility and civility” to help authorities manage the sweeping power outage.
Continuing his televised address, Sánchez urged the population to minimise travel and telephone calls and follow information from official sources.
He appealed “to citizens to cooperate with all authorities, to act with responsibility and civility”.
Irish woman Dearbhla Pepper told The Journal that her flight from Faro to Dublin was cancelled in the last while.
Dearbhla, who was meant to be returning to Ireland after a trip to Portugal for a hen party, said that she and her group “had to find out through an app” that their flight had been cancelled.
“We were just waiting on the bus, and it stopped then for a bit and we thought that we were waiting on the cabin crew, and then a man came in and said, ‘You’re going to have to get off this bus’.
“We got off and Ryanair wasn’t telling us anything, and then they eventually just said it’s probably going to be cancelled.
“We had to find out through an app.”
The outage has disrupted Orange Maroc internet services in Morocco, the subsidiary of the French telecoms giant announced.
In a statement, the company said “the disruption to our internet network is due to a widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal”.
It said the blackout had “impacted international connections”.
Other internet providers such as Maroc Telecom and Inwi have not issued any statements regarding potential disruptions.
Moroccan authorities have also not reported any impacts on the North African country resulting from the blackout.
Emergency services workers carried out 286 rescue operations to free people trapped inside elevators in Madrid during the nationwide blackout, the head of the regional government said.
“What we are now dealing with more frequently are cases of people trapped in lifts. We have received 286 requests” for help, the head of the regional government of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, said during an interview with private television station Antena 3.
The Spanish capital’s vast metro system which moves some two million people daily was evacuated “without incident”, she added.
Portugal’s grid operator REN said production has been restored at two of the country’s plants – the Castelo de Bode hydroelectric power plant and the Tapada do Outeiro thermoelectric plant.
“With this production, a very gradual process of resuming consumption is underway, firstly in the region of these plants and progressively in adjacent areas,” the operator said.
It said actions were being taken to resume the supply to priority points first, such as hospitals, security forces, airports and railways and roads.
REN said the operation to restore power throughout Portugal is “particularly complex” as they are being carried out in a situation of complete power outage.
It said the complexity was also due to the fact that Portugal relies on its own resources, “unlike what is happening in Spain, where the operation to return to normality is counting on contributions from the French and Moroccan electricity systems”.
Red Eléctrica, Spain’s power grid operator, has said that more than a fifth of the energy demand on the Iberian peninsula has been restored.
It said that this was due to a combination of autonomous energy production and from the interconnection with France.
“Supply is being progressively restored in all electrical areas of the territory,” it said, with power restored to 45% of substations in the network.
An emergency coordination committee of the Spanish Interior Ministry has noted the absence of public order incidents during the power blackout.
It said Spanish police and the Guardia Civil have put preventative patrols in place across the country.
Spain’s Guardia Civil had to rescue over 400 people from a train in Zamora province in the Castile and León region of northwest Spain.
480 personas que viajaban en un tren que se ha parado en Toro (Zamora) por el #apagón han sido evacuadas con todo su equipaje a Zamora y Medina del campo.#AuxiliosGC pic.twitter.com/foezbUKEix
— Guardia Civil (@guardiacivil) April 28, 2025
Portugal’s grid operator REN said it has restored power supply in the Greater Porto area and Santarém area.
It said is it expecting to restore the supply in the Greater Lisbon area “within the next few hours”, although it said it is still difficult to provide an hourly update.
REN said the blackout that hit Portugal “is the result of a significant voltage fluctuation in the Spanish grid at a time when Portugal was importing energy from Spain”.
“With this fluctuation, the control and protection systems of the Portuguese power plants, as expected in a situation with this configuration, shut down, causing the blackout,” it said.
In an update this evening, Dublin Airport said that as of 8pm, a total of six inbound flights have been cancelled – two from Faro, two from Lisbon, one from Seville and one from Alicante.
Seven outbound flights have also been cancelled. These include flights to Alicante, Madrid, Santiago, Marrakech, Lisbon and two flights to Faro.
“Further disruption over the remainder of this evening and into tomorrow are possible and – as always – passengers should check directly with their airline for updates regarding their flight,” it said.
Spain’s Interior Ministry has declared a state of emergency, Reuters has reported.
The news organisation reports that the ministry said the emergency status will be applied in the regions that request it.
Nearly nine hours after the blackout begun today, Spain’s transport minister said 11 trains remained stranded with passengers on board.
“Help is still needed for 11 trains. Power has been restored to the control centre of the Atocha [station],” Transport Minister Oscar Puente wrote on X.
The trains remain stranded even as lights came back on across Madrid. Spain’s power operator said it was progressively overcoming the outage.
More than 35 percent of Spain’s power demand was being met, the country’s REE electricity operator confirmed. Portugal’s operator said it had also made gains in overcoming the outage.
The source of the widespread blackout was “probably in Spain”, Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said as lights began turning on in the capital of Lisbon.
“The widespread outage of our electrical grid was caused outside the country, probably in Spain,” he told a press conference.
Montenegro also said that power should be restored throughout the country “within the next few hours”.
Nearly 50% of Spain’s electricity supply was restored by late Monday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said – but added that some workers would have to stay home Tuesday.
“According to electrical grid data, nearly 50 percent of the electricity supply has already been restored. The goal is to continue restoring the supply over the coming hours,” he said in a televised address, notably with electricity being sent from France and Morocco.
Sánchez could not say when power would be completely restored.
And with that, we’re wrapping up this liveblog. Thank you for joining us throughout the day.
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