San Francisco Frontiers - Power back in Spain, Portugal after massive blackout

Telephone, internet and lights were working again, train services resumed, shops reopened and workers flocked back to offices following the outage that struck on Monday afternoon and lasted up to 20 hours in some places.

Maria Jesus Cobos managed to drive home through Madrid overnight after a chaotic day that deprived her of light and communications until almost 11:00 pm (2100 GMT).

"That showed that we are very vulnerable, there's something that isn't being done well. I had to drive without traffic lights," she told AFP, but added people have been "very civilised".

"It shows us that we can get by," added the 50-year-old lawyer, who remembered meeting people standing by the road with signs showing their intended destination.

No firm cause for the shutdown has yet emerged, though rumours spread on messaging networks about cyberattacks and an unusual "atmospheric phenomenon".

The operations director of Spanish grid operator REE, Eduardo Prieto, said on Monday there was "a major fluctuation in the power flow, accompanied by a very large loss of production".

That "surpassed the reference disruption for which the electric systems are designed and operated" in the European Union, triggering "a disconnection of the peninsular Spanish electric system from the rest of the European system", which collapsed the Spanish and Portuguese networks, he explained.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said "all the potential causes" were being analysed and warned the public "not to speculate" because of the risk of "misinformation".

- Chaos -

"After an intense night, we have managed to restore 99.95% of energy demand and 100% of substations," Sanchez wrote on X before an emergency government meeting on Tuesday.

"Thank you to the whole population for again being an example of responsibility and civility."

In Portugal, "all the sub-stations of the national transport network have been re-established" and "we can now affirm that the network has been perfectly stabilised," a spokesman for national grid operator REN told AFP.

High-speed Spanish train lines including those connecting Madrid, Barcelona and Seville were back up and running, but services were limited or suspended on several regional routes, said national railway company Renfe.

Bars had reopened and most schools also welcomed back their pupils, although the resumption of classes varied depending on the region in Spain's decentralised political system.

Scenes of chaos engulfed Spain and Portugal on Monday, with huge tailbacks on roads, customers rushing to withdraw cash from banks and residents finding themselves trapped in lifts.

Thousands of stranded travellers slept in train stations overnight and streets were plunged into darkness with all lampposts and traffic lights turned off.

AFP journalists heard residents applaud and shout joyfully in Madrid on Monday evening as power progressively returned.

Power cuts also briefly affected areas of southwestern France before service was restored.

Parts of Denmark's gigantic Arctic territory of Greenland lost phone and internet connections on Monday evening in an outage possibly linked to the incidents on the Iberian Peninsula, operator Tusass said.

B.Ramirez--SFF