A massive blackout left Spain and Portugal without power and unleashed total chaos: collapsing airports, transport, roads and hospitals. Red Eléctrica Española has now restored the Spanish electricity system to normal operation after the major blackout that began after midday on Monday and whose exact causes are unknown, although it has ruled out a cyber-attack. The biggest problems continue to be experienced by rail transport, which is still not operating normally. Cercanías in Madrid is running at 80% and Rodalies in Catalonia was suspended at dawn and began to partially recover by mid-morning.

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A day of absolute chaos like never before. This Monday, Spain has experienced a total power blackout that has left the entire country without electricity, except for the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, and has collapsed roads and left trains, metros, traffic lights and electrical services of all kinds inoperative. Communications have also been affected and throughout the day telephone connections and messages have been dropping in dribs and drabs. As the afternoon progressed, the situation gradually returned to normal and by 00:30, up to 61% of the electricity service throughout the country had been restored.

For the moment, the causes of this power failure, which has also affected Portugal and the south of France, are still unknown. Although there were initial reports of a ‘Russian cyber-attack’ or a ‘strange meteorological phenomenon’, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has assured in an appearance that the reasons are not yet clear, although no hypothesis has been ruled out.

Furthermore, Sánchez explained that Red Eléctrica technicians have been able to confirm that at 12.33 hours “15 GW of the energy that was being produced at that time was suddenly ’lost'” for five seconds, which is equivalent to 60% of the electricity that was being consumed. Thus, as he confirmed, the Spanish electricity system seems to have disconnected from the European electricity system.

Spanish PM promising a while back that there would never be blackouts in Spain.

This is what happens when you have the Socialists in power. pic.twitter.com/IWSsfEmJ3a

— Project TABS (@ProjectTabs) April 28, 2025

The Spanish electricity grid, for its part, had already reported on Monday morning that it would last between six and 10 hours, although the situation has gradually recovered and as of 2 p.m. electricity had in fact returned to several areas in the north, south and west of the country.

The situation had a nationwide impact, with many roads cut off, traffic lights out, and traffic jams repeated on several roads across the countries.

Hospitals, for their part, were able to continue with their own generators throughout the day, although they had to suspend planned surgeries and operations.

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There is widespread speculation on social networks about cyber attacks and reprisals for actions by the Spanish government. Moreover, this widespread blackout comes days after the European Union recommended its citizens to stockpile food for 72 hours, and to have candles and a battery-powered radio tuner on hand.

-Thailand News (TN)