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On April 28, millions of people in Spain and Portugal were left without power since midday in the worst power outage in the modern history of the Iberian Peninsula. The worst-hit cities are Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Lisbon and Porto. Although both governments say power is gradually being restored, the cause of the outage remains unknown.
The unusual power outage left Spain and Portugal without power for several hours. Spanish electricity operator Red Eléctrica reported early Monday morning that about 82% of the country's power had been restored after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a gradual restoration of power.
"I am back at Red Eléctrica headquarters. It will be a long night. We are working tirelessly to restore power. Thank you to all the workers who are dedicated to bringing everything back to normal," the president wrote on social media.
Barcelona and the Basque Country were among the first regions to have power restored, but there are still areas of Madrid where the power supply is not fully restored. The capital's mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, warned residents that the city's street lights were not working at full capacity and urged people not to go out after dark.
Portuguese authorities also report that power is gradually being restored across the country. Portuguese energy company REN confirmed that power had been restored to around 2.5 million people in the past few hours, noting that work was ongoing at substations such as Divor, Estremoz, Trafaria and Portman.
In a statement, REN expressed confidence that the electrical system would be "balanced" by the evening and that power would be fully restored by the early morning.
Europe's worst power outage: What happened?
Around 12:30 p.m. in Spain and 11:30 a.m. in Portugal, major cities in both countries came to a standstill as a sudden and massive power outage hit. Millions of people thought it was just another blackout that would take minutes to fix, but minutes turned into hours as chaos engulfed cities across the Iberian Peninsula.
Major urban centers in both countries, including Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville, Murcia, Lisbon and Porto, suffered a devastating blackout that authorities described as one of the worst in the region's modern history.
In his first public appearance, Sanchez said the country lost about 15 gigawatts of power in 15 seconds, equivalent to 60% of the country's energy consumption. Portugal's caretaker Prime Minister Luis Montenegro suggested the outage had spread from Spain.
"We know that the source was not Portugal. As we know, we have links with Spain and everything points to this whole situation originating there, but I don't want to speculate," Montenegro said.
While Spain and Portugal were the hardest hit, France and Morocco also experienced difficulties with some electricity services.
According to Paris, in the south of France, parts of the Basque country experienced short periods of power outages, although they lasted only a few minutes. Meanwhile, parts of northern Morocco experienced short-term internet outages after the power outage in France.
Delayed flights, stuck lifts and a world without traffic lights
Spanish and Portuguese cities were paralysed all day by the lack of electricity. The first effects were visible on the streets, where traffic lights stopped working, causing traffic chaos and snarling traffic.
In Madrid, firefighters reported carrying out more than 200 lift cleaning operations during the day to rescue people trapped by the power outage. The capital's health services carried out up to 167 interventions for respiratory problems and anxiety attacks.
At Lisbon Airport, more than 200 flights were cancelled or delayed due to the power outage, although landings and other essential services were ensured by the use of emergency generators in the terminal. Similar partial closures occurred at Barajas Airport in Madrid. "We don't know anything other than there's been a massive power outage," a Mexican tourist who was leaving Madrid for Barcelona before the blackout halted train services told El País newspaper.
Passengers sit on the steps as they prepare to spend the night at the Atocha train station after a massive power outage that affected the entire Iberian Peninsula and southern France, in Madrid, April 28, 2025. © AFP - Oscar del Pozo
Metro lines in Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon were also suspended due to the blackout, although they resumed service in recent hours. The Catalan government confirmed that lines in Barcelona would operate overnight once they resumed service.
Hospitals continued their essential services using independent generators similar to those installed at airports.
How did governments respond?
Shortly after the blackout, the Spanish president called a crisis cabinet meeting to declare a level 3 civil defense emergency for regions such as Madrid, Extremadura and Andalusia, which had requested it.
Hours later, the Interior Ministry declared a national state of emergency due to the blackout and ordered 30,000 police officers to be deployed across the country to maintain public order. Madrid and Lisbon met to analyze the possible causes of the blackout.
For its part, the Portuguese government declared an energy crisis after the blackout, although it had always expressed confidence that power would be restored in the coming hours.
Montenegro explained its decision by the need to “respond to the situation in essential sectors” of society, such as hospitals, security forces and public transport. The prime minister described the situation as “serious, unprecedented and unexpected.”
The cause is still unknown.
Both Sanchez and Montenegro stressed that the cause of the outage was still unknown, although they said their intelligence services were investigating the source and hoped to have more information in the coming hours.
Portuguese power company REN and its Spanish counterpart Red Eléctrica said their equipment had detected “significant fluctuations” in voltage on the Spanish grid just minutes before the historic blackout that plunged the peninsula into darkness.
REN administrator João Faria Conceição confirmed that his team had reported sharp fluctuations in voltage on the Spanish grid before the outage, he told reporters.
In a statement, Red Eléctrica echoed Portugal’s reports, saying the fluctuations had caused “very significant” losses in electricity production in Spain.
However, both companies agree that it is too early to discuss the cause of the outage.
Regarding the hypothesis that it was a cyberattack, Sanchez said that “at this point no cause can be ruled out,” but he acknowledged that there was no indication that anything of the sort was involved.
For his part, European Council President António Costa stressed that “there is no evidence of a cyberattack.” The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) said that there were reasons to believe that the outage was caused by a “cable failure.”
A report by La Vanguardia claimed that the failure occurred in the connection between the French and Spanish power grids.