Spain and Portugal, including their capitals, suffered major power outages on Monday, disrupting metro services, telephone lines, traffic lights and ATMs.
Spanish energy company Red Electrica said the incident affected the entire Iberian Peninsula and the situation was currently being assessed. They added that it could take six to 10 hours for power to be restored to most of the country.
Such major power outages are quite rare.
The Portuguese cabinet held an emergency meeting at the prime minister's residence, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Red Electrica to monitor the restoration of power supplies.
The combined population of these countries exceeds 50 million people, but there is no information yet on how many of them have been affected by the shutdown.
Spanish public broadcaster RTVE reported that several regions of the country suffered a major power outage in the afternoon local time, leaving the channel's offices, the Spanish parliament in Madrid and metro services across the country without power.
A graph on the Spanish electricity grid's website showing demand across the country showed a sharp drop at around 12:15 p.m. from 27,500 MW to almost 15,000 MW.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
