Spain hit by nationwide power outage, stopping metro and trains

Mainland Spain was hit by a power outage today at around 12:30, bringing metro services in Madrid and Barcelona to a halt and disrupting rail traffic in various parts of the country. Spanish media report this. The cause of the outage is unknown, and it is not yet clear how many people were affected. Power outages were also reported in Portugal, whose government has not ruled out a cyberattack. According to El País, the outage did not affect Spain’s islands—the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands.

Spanish energy company Red Eléctrica announced that at around 12:30, electricity consumption in Spain fell by half, and it activated an emergency plan. An hour later, the company announced that it was gradually restoring electricity supplies.

The outage caused major disruption, particularly to transport: metro and train services came to a halt, and traffic lights stopped working in many places. Some shops also closed because the lights went out, or stopped letting in more customers, according to El País. Others have their own generators, however, so the outage did not affect their operations. Hospitals continued to operate normally thanks to generators.

The outage brought metro services in Madrid and Barcelona to a halt. Rail companies Adif and Renfe also announced that train services had been suspended. Operations at Barcelona-El Prat International Airport were not affected, El País reported. People were also trapped in lifts in homes and businesses, for example.

The power outage briefly halted operations at some factories, including Ford’s plant in Almussafes, Valencia, and Iveco’s factories in Madrid and Valladolid, El País reported.