Massive power outage in Spain and Portugal knocked out traffic lights, and caused chaos on roads

Power has been restored to tens of millions of people across almost all of Spain and Portugal, but disruptions to transport services were expected to stretch into a second day as questions mount over what caused a massive blackout.

Both countries remain under states of emergency after electrical supply was lost across the entire Iberian Peninsula, and in part of France, on Monday. The outage brought businesses to a standstill, halted elevators, knocked out traffic lights, and caused chaos on roads and in airports.

Experts say it might take weeks to figure out what caused the meltdown. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said late Monday that, according to the grid operator, it happened when 15 gigawatts of power were suddenly lost in just five seconds. “To give you an idea, 15 gigawatts is equivalent to approximately 60% of the country’s demand at that time,” Sanchez said.

On Tuesday morning, Spain’s grid operator said power had been supplied to 99% of the country, but the transport minister warned some trains would not operate, or would run at a reduced capacity - including the high-speed rail network.

The outage took out lighting and power sockets, and caused subway systems to suddenly fail. In Madrid, traffic piled up on the roads after the lights went out.

“I was driving and suddenly there was no traffic lights … It was a bit of a jungle,” Luis Ibáñez Jiménez told CNN. “I saw a massive bus coming, and I had to accelerate a lot to go past it.”

The blackout’s impact was dramatic: transport hubs were shuttered and governments in both countries, which share a population of around 60 million people, hastily arranged emergency meetings to coordinate a response.

Earlier, Madrid’s Mayor José Luis Martinez Almeida asked residents of the Spanish capital to minimize their movements and only call emergency services if it was truly urgent. He also called on people to clear the roads for emergency workers. Later in the day, Madrid’s emergency services provider urged the government to declare a national emergency, and local leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso asked the country to deploy the army.

In downtown Lisbon, and in cities across the Iberian peninsula, dark traffic lights led to confusion on the roads. Armando Franca/AP

For several hours on Monday, tens of millions of people were asking each other when power would return, and why it was knocked out in the first place.

Neither question was easy to answer. But once power returns, it could still take days to untangle the damage caused by Monday’s worrying blackout.

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