A massive power blackout left all of Spain and Portugal without power on Monday, disrupting communications, paralyzing public transport and generating chaos in the streets.

The outage, which also briefly affected southwestern France, left millions of people without cell phone, internet and electricity service, forcing the paralysis of trains, air traffic and economic activity in general.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez went to the headquarters of the Spanish Electricity Grid (REE) to be informed of the situation, while authorities asked to avoid speculation about the origin of the outage. According to REE, full restoration of service could take between six and ten hours.

The paralysis was immediate: trains stopped in dark tunnels and stations, traffic lights out of service forcing police to direct traffic in major cities, elevators blocked with people trapped and offices vacated.

Even the Masters 1000 tennis tournament in Madrid was suspended in full swing due to the lack of electricity, leaving matches interrupted and athletes without access to showers or basic communications.

In Madrid and Barcelona, crowds took to the streets in search of telephone signals or tried to withdraw cash from ATMs. In Plaza de Cibeles, traffic lights were cut off, causing traffic jams and scenes of confusion, as horns, sirens and whistles blared amid the gridlocked traffic.

Strategic services resist with backup

Spain's nuclear plants shut down automatically, activating their emergency diesel generators to maintain safety conditions, as confirmed by the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN).

Meanwhile, hospitals managed to keep their essential departments running thanks to their own generators, although some units were left without supply.

Airports, although affected by delays, continued to operate through contingency systems.

A symptom of energy vulnerability

Although the causes of the blackout are still unclear, the incident adds to a series of events that in recent years have highlighted the fragility of energy systems, not only in Europe but globally.

In the last decade, countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, India, Sri Lanka and Tunisia have experienced massive power outages. Europe, in particular, had already experienced a blackout in 2006 that left ten million people without service for an hour due to a failure in the German grid.

The magnitude of the outage suffered this Monday on the Iberian peninsula, and its immediate impact on transport, communications and daily life, reinforces concerns about the resilience of energy infrastructures on the continent.

For now, the recovery is progressing slowly in areas of northern, southern and western Spain, according to Red Eléctrica. But the day leaves a mark that is hard to ignore: in a context of global energy tensions, Europe faces a growing challenge to ensure the stability of its electricity supply.

With information from AFP