29-04-2025
'There was a really nice buzz': Spanish cities erupt in song as power returns to Iberia
An Irish schoolteacher has described how the Spanish city she lives in erupted into song and shadow making as residents tried to make the best of the power outage that affected the country on Monday.
Spain recovered more than 99% of its power following an unprecedented blackout that brought much of the country and its neighbour Portugal to a standstill.
The blackout saw thousands of train passengers stranded and left millions of people without phone and internet coverage and access to cash from ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.
Aisling Sweeney teaches English outside the city of Granada in the south of Spain where she has lived since September.
On Monday morning, as she prepared to go to class in the afternoon, she struggled with wifi and power, but it was when she left to catch the metro and the station was closed, she knew something was wrong.
'Up until then we just thought it was our apartment,' she told the Irish Examiner. 'We live in an old building so we thought it was just that. It happened a couple of nights ago too, the power cut for a short time.
'I was trying to plan for my classes, my 3G wasn't working, I had no internet and myself, and my boyfriend and I were getting frustrated.
'I said I'll go to work and there will be power there."
When she got to the city, she could see long queues outside shops and traffic lights not working.
'I work in a small village outside the city and that's when I began to piece together that something was wrong. The metro was closed, and I had coverage for around 10 minutes and received a text from my boss saying the school was shut down.
"He said don't come into work, that Spain and Portugal and parts of France were affected.
'That is when we realised it was bigger than our tiny little flat.'
The Spanish prime minister said a problem in the European grid caused the huge power outage that struck Spain, Portugal, and parts of France.
There is no sign of a cyberattack being the cause.
Passengers wait to board their train at Sants railway station in Barcelona on Tuesday, a day after a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France. Picture: Josep Lago / AFP via Getty Images
Ms Sweeney said by the time the news filtered out into Granada, people 'took everything in their stride'.
'Some set up camp on the street and started to sing, while others were using the natural evening light to make butterfly shadows," she said.
'The power was out since midday on Monday and it came back on 13 hours later at 1.40am, but it cut out again.
Our city is very safe, and we all stuck together, people were relaxed about it and sitting out on the street singing and talking.
'We have a gas stove and boiler, so we brought people over to make dinner and fed them.'
Her family in Sligo has been in touch since the power returned to check Aisling is safe and well.
'Everyone was worried for us, but honestly, there was a really nice buzz around the streets. People set up campfires and made animal shapes and just talked.
'The fire brigade came around to help people open their shops and they had their own generator.
'There was no hysteria: at the start people were a bit stressed, it was a bit eerie, everyone was in the city, but there was no violence, and everything was good and calm.
'Most people had food, for some reason the most popular ice cream shops managed to get generators — if we didn't have food or water at least we had ice cream, so that was fun.'
