The results of a serious power cut across Spain, Portugal and beyond are still being felt a day after the lights went out.
Traffic lights switched off, trains stopped, and airports went dark in several cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville in Spain and Lisbon, Santarém and Porto in Portugal, following the outage around midday Monday.
Power cuts were also reported in Andorra and the Basque region of France. Our map shows a few of the areas affected.
Almost 100% of power has been restored across Spain, but areas in Portugal are still reeling from the outages.
Portuguese grid operator Ren said the facility outage was right down to a ‘rare atmospheric phenomenon’ that affected the Spanish electricity grid.
Power appears to have returned for some, including Barcelona and Lisbon airports, which each saw outages, while others are still waiting.
Footage was shared of the moment the Madrid Open tennis tournament was cut off from power earlier this afternoon, and matches were suspended.
Coco Gauff, the previous US Open winner, was being interviewed about her match when the sound cut out of the microphone.
Videos also showed cars jostling at junctions as no lights were working to regulate traffic.
Some people were left without running water, causing panic buying at local shops.
The federal government of Andalucia – the region within the south of Spain which incorporates cities like Seville – were amongst those which declared a state of emergency.
They advised people against unnecessary travel in a post on social media.
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Portugal’s government previously said the incident appeared to stem from problems outside the country, an official told national news agency Lusa.
A traveller at Lisbon airport told Sky News passengers have been asked to depart: ‘It’s horrendous… the airport has done nothing to assist anyone and has now just put an announcement out to say all passengers must leave the airport and speak to their airline provider.’
Aena, which runs international airports across Spain, including Barajas in Madrid, the busiest airport in Spain, said in a press release: ‘Attributable to the facility outage, some incidents are occurring on the airports.
‘Contingency generators are energetic. Please check together with your airline, as there could also be disruptions to access and ground transportation.’
Air traffic was cut to Air traffic to ‘half capability’ at many airports, with several flights cancelled.
Spain’s traffic authority DGT, meanwhile, warned people not to make use of their cars.
One woman from West London, Maddie Sephton, was on the Madrid Metro when the facility cut happened.
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‘We got on the train and all the pieces was tremendous,’ she told Sky News. ‘But then all the pieces went dark.’
She said she and her fellow passengers werestuck on the train for 20 minutes until a staff member opened the doors manually.
They then needed to climb fifteen flights of stairs, which she said was obviously difficult for those with mobility issues.
Ms Sephton said ATM systems weren’t working, and he or she only had 15 Euros on her. Some hospitals cancelled surgeries for safety reasons
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