Latest news with #JuanManuelMoreno
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Spain, France and Portugal hit by Europe's largest power cut
Spain, Portugal and parts of France were plunged into chaos after power outages grounded flights, stopped trains and left whole cities without electricity or phone signal. 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.
Telegraph
28-04-2025
- Climate
- Telegraph
Spain, France and Portugal hit by Europe's largest power cut
Spain, Portugal and parts of France were plunged into chaos after power outages grounded flights, stopped trains and left whole cities without electricity or phone signal. 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.' 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. 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.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What could be behind Europe's power outage
The cause of the collapse in Spain and Portugal's national grids remains uncertain. But experts are already suggesting reasons for the widespread power outages, including equipment fault, a cyber attack, the role of renewables and the weather. Here are some of the key theories as to what may have gone wrong. The cyber security wing of the European Union (EU) has suggested a technical or cable fault could be responsible for the mass power outage across Spain and parts of France and Portugal. Preliminary findings from the the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) have veered away from a cyber security attack. A spokesman said: 'For the moment the investigation seems to point to a technical/cable issue.' The ENISA said it is 'closely monitoring' the situation and remains 'in contact with the relevant authorities at national and EU level'. Early speculation centred on whether power could have been knocked offline by a cyber attack. Spain's INCIBE cybersecurity agency initially said it was investigating the possibility of the blackout being triggered by a cyber attack. 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.' Spanish officials initially said they had not ruled out a cyber attack as the cause of the dramatic outage, with one government source telling Politico: 'A cyberattack has not been ruled out and investigations are ongoing.' However, the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre said there was no sign that the outage was caused by a cyberattack. Past cyber attacks on grid infrastructure have been used to cause mass blackouts for hundreds of thousands of people. In December 2015, Russian hackers knocked out the systems of three energy companies in Ukraine, causing blackouts for 230,000 people. The attacks were believed to have been ordered by Russia's intelligence agency and carried out by the Sandworm hacking group. Spy chiefs have long warned that hostile states are targeting Britain's electricity grid and other critical national infrastructure. In April, Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, told The Telegraph that briefings from the country's intelligence agencies had left him with a 'deep concern about our ability to keep our country and critical services ... safe'. 'I was really quite shocked at some of the vulnerabilities that we knew existed and yet nothing had been done,' Mr Kyle said. In November, Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, warned that Russian cyber attacks had the capability to 'turn off the lights for millions of people'. Spain is the third-most targeted country by Russian cyber criminals known as 'hacktivists', according to a council report. ZIUR, a cybersecurity centre in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, said that Spain's government, maritime and financial infrastructures had been regularly compromised by pro-Russian groups. A lack of wind and Spain's reliance on turbines for power could also be a factor in the blackouts. Spain has one of Europe's highest proportions of renewable energy, providing about 56pc of the nation's electricity. More than half of its renewables comes from wind with the rest from solar and other sources. That means Spain's electricity supplies are increasingly reliant on the weather delivering enough wind to balance its grid. For much of the last 24 hours, that wind has been largely missing. The website for example, shows wind speeds of 2-3mph, leaving the country reliant on solar energy and old gas-fired power stations. The weather system that has left Spain bereft of wind is also having similar effects across the rest of Western Europe with the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and others all seeking extra sources of electricity as their wind turbines fall still. France, for example, has been calling on Spain for extra electricity. The UK, which is also increasingly reliant on wind, was on Monday morning struggling to get any turbine power. Instead, it was relying on imports from Europe – with the London and South East receiving 58pc of its power from imports, according to the National Energy System Operator (Neso). The sheer scale of the demands being transmitted between countries and across interconnector cables – especially at a time when wind and other renewable output plummets – may be enough to disrupt grids and power transmission. The large amount of solar power on the Spanish and Portuguese grids may have also left the Iberian power grid more vulnerable to faults or cyber attacks, according to one expert. Generators that have spinning parts, such as those running on gas, coal or hydropower, create what is known as 'inertia', which helps to balance the frequency of power on the grid to prevent faults. Solar panels do not generate inertia on the system, however, and there are known issues with low inertia on the Iberian grid. At about 10am on Monday, roughly two hours before the power cuts, almost 60pc of Spain's power was being generated by solar farms, according to transparency data. Ms Porter said: 'If you have a grid fault, it can cause a frequency imbalance and in a low-inertia environment the frequency can change much faster. 'If you have had a significant grid fault in one area, or a cyber attack, or whatever it may be, the grid operators therefore have less time to react. That can lead to cascading failures if you cannot get it under control quickly enough. 'The growing reliance on solar has pushed inertia on the grid to the point where it does become more difficult to respond to disruptions such as significant transmission faults.' However, she added, if the blackouts were caused by cyber attacks on multiple parts of the grid, more inertia would not have helped. 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.
Telegraph
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
What could be behind Europe's power outage
The cause of the collapse in Spain and Portugal's national grids remains uncertain. But experts are already suggesting reasons for the widespread power outages, including equipment fault, a cyber attack, the role of renewables and the weather. Here are some of the key theories as to what may have gone wrong. Cable fault The cyber security wing of the European Union (EU) has suggested a technical or cable fault could be responsible for the mass power outage across Spain and parts of France and Portugal. Preliminary findings from the the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) have veered away from a cyber security attack. A spokesman said: 'For the moment the investigation seems to point to a technical/cable issue.' The ENISA said it is 'closely monitoring' the situation and remains 'in contact with the relevant authorities at national and EU level'. Cyber attack Early speculation centred on whether power could have been knocked offline by a cyber attack. Spain's INCIBE cybersecurity agency initially said it was investigating the possibility of the blackout being triggered by a cyber attack. 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.' Spanish officials initially said they had not ruled out a cyber attack as the cause of the dramatic outage, with one government source telling Politico: 'A cyberattack has not been ruled out and investigations are ongoing.' However, the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre said there was no sign that the outage was caused by a cyberattack. Past cyber attacks on grid infrastructure have been used to cause mass blackouts for hundreds of thousands of people. In December 2015, Russian hackers knocked out the systems of three energy companies in Ukraine, causing blackouts for 230,000 people. The attacks were believed to have been ordered by Russia's intelligence agency and carried out by the Sandworm hacking group. Spy chiefs have long warned that hostile states are targeting Britain's electricity grid and other critical national infrastructure. In April, Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, told The Telegraph that briefings from the country's intelligence agencies had left him with a 'deep concern about our ability to keep our country and critical services ... safe'. 'I was really quite shocked at some of the vulnerabilities that we knew existed and yet nothing had been done,' Mr Kyle said. In November, Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, warned that Russian cyber attacks had the capability to 'turn off the lights for millions of people'. Spain is the third-most targeted country by Russian cyber criminals known as 'hacktivists', according to a council report. ZIUR, a cybersecurity centre in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, said that Spain's government, maritime and financial infrastructures had been regularly compromised by pro-Russian groups. Problems with green energy A lack of wind and Spain's reliance on turbines for power could also be a factor in the blackouts. Spain has one of Europe's highest proportions of renewable energy, providing about 56pc of the nation's electricity. More than half of its renewables comes from wind with the rest from solar and other sources. That means Spain's electricity supplies are increasingly reliant on the weather delivering enough wind to balance its grid. For much of the last 24 hours, that wind has been largely missing. The website for example, shows wind speeds of 2-3mph, leaving the country reliant on solar energy and old gas-fired power stations. The weather system that has left Spain bereft of wind is also having similar effects across the rest of Western Europe with the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and others all seeking extra sources of electricity as their wind turbines fall still. France, for example, has been calling on Spain for extra electricity. The UK, which is also increasingly reliant on wind, was on Monday morning struggling to get any turbine power. Instead, it was relying on imports from Europe – with the London and South East receiving 58pc of its power from imports, according to the National Energy System Operator (Neso). The sheer scale of the demands being transmitted between countries and across interconnector cables – especially at a time when wind and other renewable output plummets – may be enough to disrupt grids and power transmission. The large amount of solar power on the Spanish and Portuguese grids may have also left the Iberian power grid more vulnerable to faults or cyber attacks, according to one expert. Generators that have spinning parts, such as those running on gas, coal or hydropower, create what is known as 'inertia', which helps to balance the frequency of power on the grid to prevent faults. Solar panels do not generate inertia on the system, however, and there are known issues with low inertia on the Iberian grid. At about 10am on Monday, roughly two hours before the power cuts, almost 60pc of Spain's power was being generated by solar farms, according to transparency data. Ms Porter said: 'If you have a grid fault, it can cause a frequency imbalance and in a low-inertia environment the frequency can change much faster. 'If you have had a significant grid fault in one area, or a cyber attack, or whatever it may be, the grid operators therefore have less time to react. That can lead to cascading failures if you cannot get it under control quickly enough. 'The growing reliance on solar has pushed inertia on the grid to the point where it does become more difficult to respond to disruptions such as significant transmission faults.' However, she added, if the blackouts were caused by cyber attacks on multiple parts of the grid, more inertia would not have helped.
See - Sada Elbalad
19-03-2025
- Climate
- See - Sada Elbalad
Hundreds Evacuated After Floods Hit Spain
Israa Farhan Heavy rainfall has continued to batter Spain for the third consecutive week, causing widespread flooding in the southern region of Andalusia. At least two people have gone missing, while hundreds have been evacuated as rivers overflow or approach dangerous levels. The extreme weather has heightened concerns among Spaniards, especially after torrential rains in the eastern Valencia region four months ago led to the worst natural disaster the country has seen in decades. Many citizens have criticized local authorities for delays in declaring a state of emergency. Juan Manuel Moreno, the governor of Andalusia, urged residents to exercise extreme caution as the situation remains critical. In Seville, the capital of Andalusia, two people have been reported missing due to the floods. Meanwhile, authorities have preemptively evacuated 368 families in Málaga as a safety measure. Meteorologists have warned that more heavy rain could hit parts of Spain in the coming days, increasing the risk of further flooding and damage. Emergency teams remain on high alert as they work to contain the crisis and assist affected communities. read more Gold prices rise, 21 Karat at EGP 3685 NATO's Role in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict US Expresses 'Strong Opposition' to New Turkish Military Operation in Syria Shoukry Meets Director-General of FAO Lavrov: confrontation bet. nuclear powers must be avoided News Iran Summons French Ambassador over Foreign Minister Remarks News Aboul Gheit Condemns Israeli Escalation in West Bank News Greek PM: Athens Plays Key Role in Improving Energy Security in Region News One Person Injured in Explosion at Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid News Egypt confirms denial of airspace access to US B-52 bombers News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia News Australia Fines Telegram $600,000 Over Terrorism, Child Abuse Content Lifestyle Pistachio and Raspberry Cheesecake Domes Recipe Videos & Features Bouchra Dahlab Crowned Miss Arab World 2025 .. Reem Ganzoury Wins Miss Arab Africa Title (VIDEO) News Ireland Replaces Former Israeli Embassy with Palestinian Museum News Israeli PM Diagnosed with Stage 3 Prostate Cancer Lifestyle Maguy Farah Reveals 2025 Expectations for Pisces News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple
