admin Spain’s electricity distributor, Red Eléctrica, announced on Monday that power restoration efforts following a massive and unprecedented blackout affecting large areas of Spain and neighbouring Portugal could take between six and ten hours.
The company refrained from speculating on the cause of the outage. Meanwhile, Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre released a statement confirming there was no indication the blackout resulted from a cyberattack.
Eduardo Prieto, Head of Operations at Red Eléctrica, described the incident as both “exceptional and extraordinary” during a press briefing. The blackout impacted a wide swathe of the Iberian Peninsula, disrupting services in both Spain and Portugal, including their capital cities. Subways, telephone networks, traffic signals and cash machines were all reported to be out of service.
While the exact cause remains undetermined, a Portuguese official suggested the issue might lie within Spain’s electricity distribution infrastructure.
In response to the crisis, the Portuguese Cabinet held an emergency meeting at the Prime Minister’s residence, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Red Eléctrica’s facilities to oversee the ongoing recovery efforts.
With a combined population exceeding 50 million, the scale of the outage was highly unusual for the region. However, the precise number of individuals affected was not immediately known.
A few hours after the blackout began, Spain’s national grid operator reported that electricity was gradually being restored in both the northern and southern regions of the country, which was expected to lead to the progressive resumption of full power supply.
Portugal’s government indicated that the issue seemed to originate outside its borders, according to a statement provided to national news agency Lusa.
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