Summary

Media caption,

Watch: Disruption continues in Madrid as power resumes

  1. No conclusive information to suggest outage caused by 'terrorist attack' - Spanish PMpublished at 12:25 British Summer Time 29 April

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro SanchezImage source, EPA

    After his statement, Sánchez takes questions from the press in the room.

    One reporter asks the Spanish prime minister about cyber attacks being ruled out.

    Sánchez replies, saying the government has "not had any conclusive information to suggest" this outage was caused by a terrorist attack.

  2. Government will hold private firms to account, says Sánchezpublished at 12:16 British Summer Time 29 April

    Spain's PM praises help from electricity supplies from France and Morocco.

    "We also have questions ourselves," he adds.

    Sánchez says the results of government investigations will be used to strengthen Spain's electric system, so that what happened on Monday "cannot ever happen again".

    Sánchez insists the government will "demand responsibility from private operators".

    In his view, Sánchez adds there was not a problem with renewable energy access during the outage.

    He also says there is a lot of misinformation circulating at the moment and urges people to be cautious.

  3. Spain's PM Pedro Sánchez speakingpublished at 12:04 British Summer Time 29 April
    Breaking

    Pedro SánchezImage source, Reuters

    Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is speaking now.

    You can click Watch live to see what he says.

    We'll also bring you his key points in text very soon.

  4. Spanish power firm points to solar generation as preliminary causepublished at 11:56 British Summer Time 29 April

    A man points at screens showing train's information at Joaquin Sorolla train statioImage source, EPA

    Some more comments from Spanish power company Red Eléctrica's (REE) news conference earlier.

    As reported earlier, Eduardo Prieto, head of operation services, has explained that on Monday there were two consecutive "disconnection events".

    Systems managed to recover from the first event, but Prieto said they couldn't recover from the second, which led to the power outage in Spain and Portugal.

    When asked, Prieto admitted it is "very possible" that the affected generation was solar, though he said authorities don't yet have enough information to be sure.

    Finally, he said REE restored power to the grid by using hydro and combined-cycle gas, which operate through a combined gas and steam turbine method.

  5. Two 'disconnection events' before blackout on Monday - power company headpublished at 11:46 British Summer Time 29 April

    Guy Hedgecoe
    Reporting from Madrid

    Let's bring you more from the recent news conference held by Spain's power company REE.

    The company has said they've ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of the blackout.

    Eduardo Prieto, head of operation services, has said that there were two “disconnection events”, barely a second apart, just before the blackout on Monday.

    He said the incidents took place in the south-west of Spain, where there is substantial solar generation.

    He added that “nothing leads us to believe that it could have been human error”.

  6. US couple stranded after Airbnb's electric door stopped workingpublished at 11:35 British Summer Time 29 April

    Nick Beake
    Reporting from Madrid

    Jessica and Olvyn smile for their camera with their arms around each other at Atocha station in Madrid

    We’ve just met a couple from the US who spent four hours walking through the streets of Madrid last night, trying to find somewhere to sleep.

    Jessica Lopez and Olvyn Lanza from Iowa said the electric door for the Airbnb they’d booked didn’t work, so they were stranded.

    The couple are massive football fans, with Jessica supporting Madrid and Olvyn rooting for Barcelona.

    They’re now trying to resume their journey around Spain and enjoy the last 10 days of their European holiday.

    Jessica says they’ve taken the disruption in their stride, but the most worrying moment was when they couldn’t get hold of their children back home for much of yesterday.

    They feared their children may have read incorrect speculation online about what was unfolding and may have feared the worst.

  7. 'My family were on one of the stranded trains'published at 11:21 British Summer Time 29 April

    Thomas Mackintosh
    Live reporter

    I've been speaking with Álvaro Peinado, who says his mother and aunts were on one of the 11 trains the transport minister said were stranded until the early hours.

    They were travelling on the 10:00 local time (09:00 BST) Renfe train from Alicante, which usually takes about two and a half hours.

    But just 40 minutes from Madrid Atocha, their train stopped at 12:33 when the power cut hit.

    "At first, we were able to contact them," Álvaro, 24, tells me. "From what they told me, there were episodes of tension, extreme nervousness, and anxiety.

    "We lost contact with them after 14:00. The next thing we knew was at 23:00.

    "They were among the 11 trains the government hadn't been able to rescue. They had tried to put them on another locomotive to take them to Cuenca with another train, but it wasn't possible."

    Álvaro says more than 300 people were on the train, which finally reached Atocha at 02:00.

  8. Spanish power company rules out cyberattack as cause of blackoutpublished at 11:12 British Summer Time 29 April
    Breaking

    Spain’s power company REE has ruled out cyberattack as the cause of the nationwide power outage.

    This matches what Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said yesterday – that there’s no sign a cyberattack was behind the power cut.

    We’ll bring you more from the news conference as soon as we have it.

  9. Play resumes at Madrid Open after power cut disruptionpublished at 11:02 British Summer Time 29 April

    Play at the Madrid Open is set to go ahead as planned today, after the tennis tournament was suspended due to a power outage yesterday.

    Organisers said both day and night sessions were cancelled on Monday "in order to guarantee general safety", with fans seen leaving the Caja Mágica stadium in the dark.

    In a post this morning, Mutua Madrid Open says power has been restored to the stadium, and doors have opened at 11:00 local time (10:00 BST).

    They added that the event would start at 12:00 local time, as scheduled.

    Fans are seen after the matches get suspended due to a power outageImage source, Reuters
    Image caption,

    Fans were seen leaving the Caja Mágica in Manzanares Park in the dark on Monday

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  10. Spain's King Felipe finishes chairing national security meetingpublished at 10:38 British Summer Time 29 April
    Breaking

    Guy Hedgecoe
    Reporting from Madrid

    Spain's King Felipe VI shaking hands with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro SánchezImage source, EPA
    Image caption,

    Spain's King Felipe VI (R) shaking hands with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (L) shortly before the emergency meeting of the Spanish National Security Council

    Felipe of Spain has finished chairing the national security meeting to find out why Spain and Portugal had major power cuts on Monday.

    A cabinet meeting is now under way. We’ll bring you more updates as we get them.

  11. Woman dies in fire during blackout in Madridpublished at 10:28 British Summer Time 29 April

    A woman has died during a blackout in a fire at her flat in the Carabanchel area of southern Madrid.

    According to El Pais, the National Police's initial hypotheses suggest a candle may have started the fire.

    Emergency service agency SAMUR confirmes the death of a middle-aged woman, and says 13 others are treated, with five taken to hospital.

    Elsewhere in Madrid, emergency services says firefighters rescued more than 200 people, most of them trapped in lifts after the power cut.

  12. Watch: Travel chaos in Madrid as power comes back onpublished at 10:17 British Summer Time 29 April

    Europe correspondent Nick Beake is at Atocha station in Madrid, where queues are building as services start up again this morning.

    Many commuters with tickets for travel yesterday ended up sleeping on the station floor overnight, after they couldn't book local hotels.

  13. Millions in Spain and Portugal were left without power yesterday – a recappublished at 10:12 British Summer Time 29 April

    If you missed what happened yesterday – maybe because of the power cut itself – here’s a quick recap.

    Power has now been restored in both countries, but transport is still in chaos, with trains and flights reporting delays.

    We’ll keep bringing you the latest updates.

    Graph showing how power usage slumped in Spain and Portugal
  14. Wednesday's Champions League semi-final set to go ahead as Barcelona metro fully reopenspublished at 10:04 British Summer Time 29 April

    Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, pictured in the previous round against Borussia DortmundImage source, Reuters
    Image caption,

    Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, pictured in the previous round against Borussia Dortmund

    All metro services in Barcelona are running again and buses in the city are operating as normal, the local authority says.

    It adds there are some "altered schedules" on three tram lines, but overall, public transport is getting back to normal.

    Mayor Jaume Collboni says Wednesday's Champions League semi-final between Barcelona and Inter Milan will go ahead at the Olympic Stadium.

    Also in the Montjuïc area, a 9,000-person festival known as the April Fair has been given the green light to reopen.

    Public transportations are on a halt as a widespread power outage strikes SpainImage source, Getty Images
  15. 'We all slept on the floor like dogs' - Barcelona passengerpublished at 09:46 British Summer Time 29 April

    Esperanza Escribano
    Reporting from Barcelona

    People with tickets to travel from Barcelona train station yesterday spent the night there and are still unable to leave this morning, leading to growing frustration.

    Ariani says she has been at the station since 20:00 last night with a 10-year-old girl and has “gotten no answers” about when they could start their journey to Madrid.

    She says others with tickets for today are “being prioritised”.

    “People with trains at 05:00 are showing up freshly showered, slept at home, and they go right ahead,” she said. “We all slept on the floor like dogs.”

    Irene, also travelling to Madrid with her children aged 15 and 10, says they are meant to travel at 14:00 yesterday.

    “There were no hotels – all the nearby ones were full. I couldn’t connect to book anything, and we didn’t dare leave because we thought service would resume early,” she says.

    A man says some people are buying new tickets to travel today, but argues yesterday’s passengers “should be given priority”.

    “Since 00:30, we’ve had no updates. Rail staff gave us half a litre of water to survive on and no information at all.”

    People sit on the floor and stand around as they wait outside Barcelona train station overnightImage source, Reuters
    Image caption,

    Trains from Barcelona Sants stopped after the power cut hit Spain

  16. Spanish men in good spirits despite spending the night in sports hallpublished at 09:44 British Summer Time 29 April

    Eve Webster
    BBC News

    Iker Arroyo and Borja Gomez

    Iker Arroyo and Borja Gomez from Malaga are in good spirits, even after spending the night in a sports hall in Ciudad Real, a city about an hour from Madrid, along with around 600 others.

    Maybe it helped that it was Borja’s birthday.

    “We were stuck in the train for six hours and then the police came to hand out water and blankets. Then they took us to a sports hall and we slept there,” Iker says.

    Blankets and sleeping mats laid out on the floor of Atocha station
    Image caption,

    Local authorities provided blankets, sleeping mats, food and water for people who spent the night at Atocha station

  17. Analysis

    Could this be a cyber attack?published at 09:28 British Summer Time 29 April

    Joe Tidy
    Cyber correspondent

    The simple answer is yes, it could be, as you can never really say “never” in cyber.

    But it is far too early to say, and it is far more likely that some sort of accident or technical mistake has caused the outage.

    If it is a cyber attack, it would be completely unprecedented in scale and impact.

    Power grids have been taken offline in the past – two occasions that we know about.

    Russian state-sponsored hackers from a notoriously powerful hacking unit known as Sandworm are accused of causing power cuts in Ukraine. Tens of thousands of homes were without power for hours in the cold winter of 2015.

    The same hackers are accused of carrying out a successful repeat attack on the capital Kyiv a year later.

    Both attacks shocked the cyber world at the time and were extremely sophisticated, likely involving months of work by the attackers.

    But they were localised and fixed within hours.

    If what is happening now was some sort of hack, it would be a massive escalation of what was thought possible.

  18. Commuters pack platforms as Madrid Metro resumes – latest picturespublished at 09:09 British Summer Time 29 April

    As we've reported, Madrid's Metro has mostly started running again and commuters are already packing onto platforms and into trains.

    Here are some of the latest pictures from Spain during its busy morning.

    People wait on a platform as metro operations resume partially, after power begins to return following a huge outage that hit SpainImage source, EPA
    People wait at a railway stationImage source, Reuters
    People queue to access a metro servicesImage source, Reuters
  19. Portuguese government confirms power restored as schools set to reopenpublished at 08:49 British Summer Time 29 April

    In the last 30 minutes, Portugal's government has confirmed that power supplies have been restored after Monday's nationwide blackout.

    Water supplies are now running across the whole of Portugal, and metro systems in Lisbon and Porto are operating, though some delays remain.

    There's still some recovery work happening at Lisbon's main airport, but most flights there and at other major airports are operating.

    Schools are set to reopen, and the health service is now fully stable, according to the government.

    A man walks his dog in Portugal next to a shop which has had to close due to a blackoutImage source, Getty Images
  20. Brit stuck on Spanish train for almost 24 hourspublished at 08:28 British Summer Time 29 April

    Alex Emery
    BBC News

    Alicia Hindhaugh from Northumberland is still on a train heading to Madrid after boarding on Monday morning for what was meant to be a three-hour journey.

    “I’m still two hours away from Madrid,” she tells BBC News, adding that the train was moved to a small station overnight, “in the middle of nowhere”.

    “There was a three-week-old baby on board but some local villagers took the family to stay with them overnight,” she says.

    “I’m just hearing the announcement that a new crew is coming and then we will continue our journey, which has made me feel a bit better.

    “It just felt disgusting overnight as it was so hot. I don’t speak the language and it was pitch black overnight so it did feel a bit scary.

    “The sky was lovely though, so there was a positive!”