Spain, France and Portugal hit by Europe's largest power cut
Although the cause of one of Europe's largest blackouts has yet to be established, some senior officials have blamed it on a cyberattack.
Hospitals were forced to use emergency generators and the Spanish government urged motorists to stay off the roads after traffic controls went down in the country shortly after noon local time.
All three countries are investigating the cause of the blackout.
Juan Manuel Moreno, the president of the regional government of the Spanish region of Andalucia, said: 'Everything points to a blackout of this magnitude only being due to a cyberattack.'
Credit: Georgina Wray for The Telegraph
The senior politician in Spain's opposition centre-Right Popular Party said he had not received confirmation from the federal government in Madrid and had reached his conclusion 'solely based on our own data'.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the regional government of Madrid, called on Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, to trigger the highest level emergency plan.
'We ask the national government to activate Plan 3 so that the Army can maintain order if necessary,' Ms Ayuso said.
The Madrid Open tennis competition was abandoned. Jacob Fearnley, the British tennis player, was forced to leave the clay court, after scoreboards and a camera above the court were affected.
The city's metro was evacuated with photos of passengers stumbling through dark tunnels of the underground network appearing online.
Credit: X/@varuky_
Mobile networks have also been hit, with reception either patchy or non-existent in areas. In Madrid and Barcelona, people were seen heading into the streets, holding their smartphones up to try to connect to a network.
The Portuguese Cabinet convened an emergency meeting and Mr Sánchez visited power distributor Red Eléctrica to follow efforts at restoring grid operations.
Red Eléctrica says restoring power to large parts of the country could take six to10 hours. The company declined to speculate on the causes of the blackout.
It said it was recovering power in the north and south of the peninsula, which would help to progressively restore the electricity supply nationwide.
Kathy Diaz Romero, from Sant Celoni, a small town in Catalonia, said residents had not been told what was going on.
'There's no traffic lights, no trains, no subways. They still haven't said anything about why it happened,' she said. 'It's coming back on slowly in my town but there's still lots of places without power at all.'
Trevor Court, who lives in Lloret de Mar near Barcelona, said: 'My power went off at 12.30pm. At first I thought it was a substation. But friends in Barcelona and Zaragoza messaged to say they had no electricity.
'Most places are electric. So now they have no way to cook, have a hot drink or charge their phone, or buy food as some supermarkets and shops have closed, or get petrol as pumps are out. Or charge EV's.'
Europe's biggest outage to date was in 2003, when 56 million people in Italy and parts of Switzerland were left without electricity for up to 12 hours.
With the whole of Spain reportedly without power, as well as swathes of southern France and Portugal, Monday's cuts could surpass the 2003 incident in terms of the number of people affected.
The largest power cut in history was in India in 2012 when 700 million people, roughly 10 per cent of the world's population at the time, were left without electricity.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
10 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Spain battles one of its most destructive fire seasons even as its heat wave eases
MADRID — Spain tackled several major wildfires on Tuesday in one of the country's most destructive fire seasons in recent decades, despite temperatures dropping across the Iberian Peninsula. Thousands of firefighters aided by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft fought fires tearing through parched woodland that were especially severe in northwestern Spain, where the country's weather agency AEMET reported a still 'very high or extreme' fire risk — particularly in the Galicia region. The fires in Galicia have ravaged small, sparsely populated towns, forcing locals in many cases to step in before firefighters arrive. Firefighting units from Germany arrived in northern Spain on Tuesday to help fight the blazes, Spain's Interior Ministry announced. More than 20 vehicles were deployed to help fight an ongoing blaze in Jarilla in the Extremadura region that borders Portugal, the ministry said. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the area Tuesday, where he spoke of the recent heat that has fueled the fires. Temperatures across the Iberian Peninsula dropped by about 7 degrees on Tuesday after a 16-day heat wave with several days above 104 degrees, Spain's weather agency reported. 'Science tells us, common sense tells us too, especially that of farmers and ranchers, of those who live in rural areas, that the climate is changing, that the climate emergency is becoming more and more recurrent, more frequent and has an ever greater impact,' Sánchez said. In Galicia, land management has also played a role; large stretches of unmanaged vegetation and depopulated villages in forested land have led to the build-up of wildfire fuel, said Adrian Regos, an ecologist at the Biological Mission of Galicia, a research institute. The fires in Spain have killed four people this year and burned more than 382,000 hectares or about 1,475 square miles, according to the European Union's European Forest Fire Information System. That surface area is more than twice the size of metropolitan London, more than six times the 2006-2024 average for land burned during the same period, according to EFFIS. Air quality deteriorated across large parts of Spain over the past week as a result of the wildfires, data from the EU's Copernicus climate monitoring agency showed. Smoke from the Iberian Peninsula fires reached France, the UK, and Scandinavia, it said. Several fires have been triggered by human activity. Police have detained 23 people for suspected arson and are investigating 89 more, Spain's Civil Guard said Tuesday. In Portugal, more than 3,700 firefighters were tackling blazes, including four major ones in the north and center. Wildfires there have burned about 235,000 hectares or 907 square miles, according to EFFIS — nearly five times more than the 2006-2024 average for this period. Two people there have died. Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to Copernicus. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires. Naishadham writes for the Associated Press.
14 hours ago
Spain battles record fires even as end of heatwave brings lower temperatures
MADRID -- Spain tackled several major wildfires on Tuesday in one of the country's most destructive fire seasons in recent decades, despite temperatures dropping across the Iberian Peninsula. Thousands of firefighters aided by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft continued to fight fires tearing through parched woodland that were especially severe in northwestern Spain, where the country's weather agency AEMET reported a still 'very high or extreme' fire risk — particularly in the Galicia region. The fires in Galicia have ravaged small, sparsely populated towns, forcing locals in many cases to step in before firefighters arrive. Firefighting units from Germany arrived in northern Spain on Tuesday to help fight the blazes, Spain's Interior Ministry announced. More than 20 vehicles were deployed to help fight an ongoing blaze in Jarilla in the Extremadura region that borders Portugal, the ministry said. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was expected to visit Jarilla later on Tuesday. The fires in Spain, which have killed 4 people this year, have burned more than 382,000 hectares or about 1,475 square miles according to the European Union's European Forest Fire Information System. That surface area is more than twice the size of metropolitan London. Many fires have been triggered by human activity. Police have detained 23 people for suspected arson and are investigating 89 more, Spain's Civil Guard said Tuesday. In Portugal, more than 3,700 firefighters were tackling blazes, including 4 major ones in the north and center. Wildfires there have burned about 235,000 hectares or 907 square miles, according to EFFIS — nearly 5 times more than the 2006-2024 average for this period. Two people there have died. Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.
18 hours ago
What to know about powerful Hurricane Erin as it heads past the US East Coast
Island communities off the coast of North Carolina are bracing for flooding ahead of the year's first Atlantic hurricane, Hurricane Erin. Although forecasters are confident that the storm won't make direct landfall in the United States, authorities on a few islands along North Carolina's Outer Banks issued evacuation orders and warned that some roads could be swamped by waves of 15 feet (4.6 meters). By Monday night the storm's top sustained winds had dropped to 130 mph (210 kph) but it's still a major, dangerous hurricane. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. Here is what to know about Hurricane Erin. Forecasters say Erin will turn northeast — and away — from the eastern U.S. Still, the storm is expected to bring tropical storm force winds, dangerous waves and rip currents to North Carolina's coast. That is according to Dave Roberts of the National Hurricane Center. Coastal flooding in North Carolina is expected to begin Tuesday. Evacuations were being ordered on Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island along North Carolina's Outer Banks even though the storm is unlikely to make direct landfall. Authorities warned that some roads could be swamped by waves of 15 feet (4.6 meters). The orders come at the height of tourist season on the thin stretch of low-lying barrier islands that juts far into the Atlantic Ocean. There are concerns that several days of heavy surf, high winds and waves could wash out parts of the main highway running along the barrier islands, the National Weather Service said. Some routes could be impassible for several days. Portions of Highway 12 on Ocracoke and Hatteras Islands are most at risk for storm surge, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said. Erin's outer edges hit parts of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with heavy rains and tropical-storm winds on Sunday, knocking out power for thousands. Storm surge is the level at which sea water rises above its normal level. Much like the way a storm's sustained winds do not include the potential for even stronger gusts, storm surge doesn't include the wave height above the mean water level. Surge is also the amount above what the normal tide is at a time, so a 15-foot storm surge at high tide can be far more devastating than the same surge at low tide. Government officials in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which has a population of just over 46,000, said all services were suspended on three of its islands and ordered residents there to stay home. The easternmost islands of the British territory have been most impacted by heavy rainfall and powerful winds. Bermuda won't feel the full intensity of the storm until Thursday evening, acting Minister of National Security Jache Adams said, and services on the island were still 'open for business" on Monday afternoon. But Adams issued a stark warning that storm surge, which could reach up to 24 feet (7.3 meters) by Thursday, would make waters too dangerous to swim, surf or boat in. A year ago, Hurricane Ernesto stayed hundreds of miles offshore from the U.S. Eastern seaboard yet still produced high surf and swells that caused coastal damage. Erin's strength has fluctuated significantly over the past week. The most common way to measure a hurricane's strength is the Saffir-Simpson Scale that assigns a category from 1 to 5 based on a storm's sustained wind speed at its center, with 5 being the strongest. Erin reached a dangerous Category 5 status Saturday with 160 mph (260 kph) winds before weakening. It is expected to remain a large, major hurricane into midweek. 'You're dealing with a major hurricane. The intensity is fluctuating. It's a dangerous hurricane in any event,' the hurricane center's Richard Pasch said. Although Erin is the first Atlantic hurricane of the year, there have been four tropical storms this hurricane season already. Tropical Storm Chantal made the first U.S. landfall of the season in early July, and its remnants caused flooding in North Carolina that killed an 83-year-old woman when her car was swept off a rural road. And at least 132 people were killed in floodwaters that overwhelmed Texas Hill Country on the Fourth of July.
