Chaotic aftermath of major power cut in Spain, Portugal and France captured

PICTURES and videos have shown the chaotic aftermath of a major power cut across several European countries including Spain and Portugal.

The outage hit Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville in Spain, as well as Lisbon in Portugal, knocking out subway networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines.

Spanish generator Red Electrica said the incident had affected the Iberian peninsula and is being assessed. Such a widespread outage is rare.

The Portuguese Cabinet convened an emergency meeting at the prime minister’s residence, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Red Electrica to follow efforts to restore power to the grid.

The countries have a combined population of more 50 million people, but it was not immediately clear how many were affected.

Spain’s public broadcaster, RTVE, said a major power outage hit several regions of the country just after midday local time, leaving its newsroom, Spain’s parliament in Madrid and subway stations across the country in the dark.

This is what a power outage in Europe looks like: subways and airports are down, and the streets are in chaos. According to the latest information, the power outage affected not only Spain and Portugal, but also parts of France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. What exactly… pic.twitter.com/DXrwlb5i26

— Jürgen Nauditt 🇩🇪🇺🇦 (@jurgen_nauditt) April 28, 2025

A graph on Spain’s electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a steep drop at around 12.15pm from 27,500MW to near 15,000MW.

A couple of hours later, Spain’s electricity network operator said it was recovering power in the north and south of the peninsula, which would help to progressively restore the electricity supply nationwide.

In Portugal, a country of some 10.6 million people, the outage hit the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country.

Portugal’s government said the incident appeared to stem from problems outside the country, an official told national news agency Lusa.

“It looks like it was a problem with the distribution network, apparently in Spain. It’s still being ascertained,” Cabinet Minister Leitao Amaro was quoted as saying.

The empty center court is seen during a general power blackout during Day Seven of the Mutua Madrid Open at La Caja Magica Portuguese distributor E-Redes said the outage was due to “a problem with the European electricity system”, according to Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

The company said it was compelled to cut power in specific areas to stabilise the network, according to Expresso.

E-Redes said parts of France also were affected.

Several Lisbon subway cars were evacuated, reports said.

Also in Portugal, courts stopped work and ATMs and electronic payment systems were affected. Traffic lights in Lisbon stopped working.

It was not possible to make calls on mobile phone networks, though some apps were working.