Overview

• The blackout began at approximately 12:30 PM local time, affecting the entire Iberian Peninsula and parts of France, while the Balearic and Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla remained unaffected due to independent power systems.
• Red Eléctrica Española attributes the outage to a severe oscillation in power flows that disconnected the peninsula from Europe’s power grid, with full restoration expected within 6–10 hours.
• National cybersecurity agencies, including CCN-CERT and INCIBE, are investigating whether the disruption resulted from a cyberattack or other malicious activity.
• Critical infrastructure, including rail networks, urban traffic signals, and metro systems, was paralyzed, with emergency services responding to trapped passengers and traffic disruptions.
• Hospitals and essential services have sustained operations using backup generators, while recovery efforts focus on phased re-energization from northern and southern grid nodes.