Tens of millions of people across Spain and Portugal have been plunged into a huge power blackout blamed by the Portuguese operator on extreme temperature variations, leaving them without trains, metros, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections and internet access. The Spanish government convened a crisis meeting at the national grid operator, Red Eléctrica, to discuss the outage. View image in fullscreen Fans at the Madrid Open tennis tournament after matches were suspended due to the power outage. The Portuguese operator, REN, said the outage was caused by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”, with extreme temperature variations in Spain causing “anomalous oscillations” in very high-voltage lines. In Portugal, the outage hit the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country.

Source: The Guardian April 28, 2025 20:37 UTC