The Spanish Interior Ministry said on Monday an emergency state in the country after a vast electricity failure affected most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Ministry added that the state of emergency would apply in the regions that would request it. Until now, Madrid, Andalusia and Estremadure have asked the central government to guarantee public order and other functions.
A large part of Spain and Portugal was assigned on Monday by a vast electrical failure that blocked traffic on the road, nailed airplanes on the ground, caught people in elevators and forced operators to significant efforts to restore millions of homes and companies.
The hospitals also had to interrupt some of their activities and the governments of the two countries convened emergency meetings, while the authorities initially declared that a cyber attack could not be excluded.
The current began to return to the Basque Country and Barcelona
The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said at the beginning of the night that he did not have conclusive information about the causes of breakdown, adding that he did not perched at this stage of public security problems and asked the population to limit the use of telephones.
The Portuguese electricity operator, REN, has mentioned extreme temperature variations in Spain that would have caused abnormal oscillations in very high voltage lines, with the consequence of synchronization failures between networks and chain disturbances in the interconnected European network. Complete normal performance could take up to a week, added the company.
According to Reuters journalists, the current had begun to return early in the afternoon to Spain, in the Basque Country and Barcelona, a few hours after the beginning of the breakdown, without anyone knowing what deadlines it could be restored on a larger scale. The Madrid and Catalonia hospitals suspended all their common medical activities, but continued to attend to patients in critical condition thanks to rescue generators. Several Spanish oil refineries have also been stopped and retail stores have closed their doors.
The cyber attack track is not ruled out
The Spanish bank said that electronic banking services operated “correctly” thanks to emergency systems, although residents have reported that service ticket distributors. The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, asked X to the inhabitants of the capital to limit their trips and stay where they are, adding: “It is essential that emergency services can circulate.”
E-Redes, the Spanish Red Electricity Surveillance Company, had previously declared in a press release that was working to restore the current by stages. The operation will depend on several factors, but the simulations indicate that it should last between six and 10 hours, he said later, and added that he has never faced a failure of that scale. This Monday night, the electricity network was restored to 35%; According to the manager.
The authorities could not explain the cause of collapse immediately, but a possible cyber attack has not been dismissed and the investigations are in progress, they said.
Strong police presence around key buildings
The Spanish radios indicated that part of the Madrid Metro was being evacuated and informed to the center of the capital after the traffic lights stopped working.
The last incident of such magnitude in Europe dates from 2006, when a problem in the very high German voltage network had caused energy cuts in certain parts of the country, as well as in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands already Morocco.
Source: BFM TV
