A massive power outage appears to have affected large portions of Spain and Portugal Monday.
Red Electrica, the operator of Spain’s power grid, said on social media Monday morning that voltage has been recovered in substations in several areas in the north, south, and west of the peninsula. The agency also said it was continuing to work with all of its resources to restore power throughout the entire country as soon as possible.
Red Electrica said early Monday morning the cause of the outage was being analyzed. “All resources are being dedicated to solving it,” the agency said on X.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez held an “extraordinary” meeting of the country’s national security council starting at 3 p.m. local time, according to the official X account for the Spanish government.
‘Entire national electricity grid was cut off’
Renfe, Spain’s national railway company, said on social media Monday the “entire national electricity grid was cut off” at 12:30 local time, and that trains were stopped and without departures at all stations.
The railway posted on social media hours later, saying service “remains suspended due to lack of electricity supply.”
The British Broadcasting Corporation, citing local reports, said the outage caused traffic jams in the center of the Spanish capital of Madrid due to traffic lights not working. The Madrid Open, a professional tennis tournament held in the capital, has also been suspended due to the outages.
Parts of Barcelona and Lisbon were also affected by the outage, with public transport, traffic lights, and phone services mostly down, according to Bloomberg.
This story has been updated to add new information.
Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X @GabeHauari or email him at Gdhauari@gannett.com.
