Spain and Portugal plugged back in following unexplained power outage
More than 99 percent of power networks in Spain were restored by Tuesday morning and most had 'stabilised' in Portugal, according to the respective power operators, following Monday's outage that stranded people in buildings, elevators and public transport and cut access to phones and the internet.
Authorities in the Iberian Peninsula have yet to explain what caused the sweeping power cut.
Spain's electricity grid operator Red Electrica said it was able to supply virtually all of the country's electricity demand on Tuesday morning.
Portugal's REN said by late Monday it had all of the country's 89 power substations back up and running.
In the Spanish capital Madrid, 'loud cheers' erupted overnight as the power returned, Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reported. 'But many people were still stranded in the stations because the trains were not moving,' she said.
Madrid's metro system said 80 percent of the trains would be operating again during rush hour on Tuesday morning.
In Portugal, the majority of the nation's 6.5 million households had their power restored overnight, according to REN.
With the power back on, attention is turning to what caused such widespread failure of the region's networks.
Barely a corner of the Iberian Peninsula, which has a joint population of about 60 million, escaped the blackout. Officials said there was little precedent.
Freak climate conditions and cyberattacks are among the candidates suggested. Officials have urged calm as the process of analysing the incident starts.
Both the Spanish and Portuguese governments scheduled crisis meetings on Tuesday morning.
Officials at the Portuguese grid operator have cited a 'rare atmospheric phenomenon' as the culprit, Al Jazeera's Sonia Gallego reported.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the source of the failure was 'probably in Spain'.
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said 'all the potential causes' of the incident are being analysed and warned the public 'not to speculate' because of the risk of 'misinformation', noting that 'no hypothesis or possibility is being ruled out.'
He said about 15 gigawatts of electricity, equivalent to about 60 percent of the power being consumed at the time, had 'suddenly disappeared'.
Red Electrica stated that the outage was 'exceptional and totally extraordinary'.
The company's director of network operations told media that the disconnection of the European power grid in France was responsible. However, it remains unclear what led to this disconnection.
The outage was the second large failure of European power systems in as many months. In March, Europe's busiest airport, London's Heathrow, was forced to close after it suffered a 'significant' power failure, disrupting air transport worldwide.
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