Spain and Portugal lost power Monday in a massive electricity blackout that affected public transport systems, traffic lights, hospitals, manufacturing and nuclear power plants.
Outages were reported from Madrid to Lisbon, with large parts of the Iberian Peninsula without power as of early Monday afternoon.
The blackout was caused by a “very strong oscillation in the electrical network” that led Spain’s power system to “disconnect from the European system, and the collapse of the Iberian electricity network at 12:38,” said Eduardo Prieto, director of Spanish transmission system operator Red Eléctrica.
Prieto refused to speculate as to what had caused the power surge and declined to say if a cyberattack could have contributed to the blackout. While the flow of electricity has been reestablished in some parts of Spain, he added that it would take between six and 10 hours to have service fully restored throughout the rest of the country.
