Massive blackout hits Spain, Portugal & France: Trains, fights affected; millions impacted

Millions of people on Monday were impacted after electricity was cut off across Spain, Portugal and part of southern France in a massive blackout. According to train operator in Spain, trains were highly affected due to blackout.

The reason behind the outage was not immediately identified, but taking to X, Spain's state electricity network operator Red Electrica claimed that it managed to restore power in north and south of the country.

All of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as part of France, was affected, according to Portugal's REN operator.

Spain's public broadcaster RTVE reported that the blackout began around 12:30 pm local time, impacting critical infrastructure such as Spain's Parliament, metro stations nationwide, and even RTVE's own newsroom. In Barcelona and nearby towns, residents flooded neighbourhood WhatsApp groups with reports of the blackout.

In Portugal, power failures hit Lisbon and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country. Portuguese distributor E-Redes attributed the disruption to "a problem with the European electricity system," according to local media outlet Expresso. The company said it had to cut electricity in specific regions to stabilize the network. Reports indicated that parts of France were also affected.

The outages caused widespread disruptions: mobile phone networks were largely down for voice calls, though some messaging apps remained functional. In Lisbon, the subway reportedly ground to a halt and traffic lights in the city center failed, leading to traffic chaos.

Authorities in both countries have yet to provide an estimate of how many people were affected or how long it will take to fully restore services.