Lights flickered back to life in Spain and Portugal yesterday after a massive blackout hit the Iberian Peninsula, stranding passengers in trains and hundreds of elevators, while millions saw phone and Internet coverage die.
Electricity had been restored to more than 90 percent of mainland Spain early yesterday, the REE power operator said. The lights came on again in Madrid and in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.
Barely a corner of the peninsula, which has a joint population of almost 60 million people, escaped the blackout, but no firm cause for the shutdown has yet emerged, though wild rumors spread on messaging networks about cyberattacks.
Photo: AFP
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the source of the outage was “probably in Spain.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that “all the potential causes” were being analyzed and warned the public “not to speculate” because of the risk of “misinformation.”
Sanchez said about 15 gigawatts of electricity, more than half of the power being consumed at the time, “suddenly disappeared” in about five seconds.
Sanchez was unable to say when power would be completely restored in Spain and warned that some workers would have to stay at home yesterday. Montenegro said Portugal’s power would be back “within hours.”
Power was restored overnight to about 6.2 million households in Portugal out of 6.5 million, the national electricity grid operator said.
The outage rippled briefly into southwest France, while Morocco saw disruption to some Internet providers and airport check-in systems.
People were “stunned,” said Carlos Candori, a 19-year-old construction worker who had to exit the paralyzed Madrid metro system.
“This has never happened in Spain,” he said. “There’s no [phone] coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing. I can’t even go to work.”
In Madrid and cities across Spain and Portugal, panicked customers rushed to withdraw cash from banks and streets filled with crowds floundering for a phone signal. Long lines formed for taxis and buses. With traffic lights knocked out, police struggled to keep densely congested traffic moving and authorities urged motorists to stay at home.
In Madrid alone 286 rescue operations were carried out to free people trapped in elevators, regional authorities said.
Trains were halted across the country and yesterday morning, three trains were still stranded in Spain with passengers onboard, Spanish Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility Oscar Puente said.
Railway stations in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Seville and four other major cities were kept open all night so that stranded passengers could sleep there.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
RSS