Nearly 50% of electricity in Spain has been restored. Portugal: There are no signs that it was caused by the power grid outage

Large-scale power outages occurred in most parts of Spain and Portugal on Monday (April 28th). Spain declared a state of emergency and nearly 50% of the power has been restored. The Portuguese Prime Minister said there was no indication that the power outage was caused by a cyber attack.

Reuters reported that the Spanish Ministry of the Interior declared a state of emergency across the country and deployed 30,000 police officers nationwide to maintain order. Such a large-scale Internet outage is extremely rare in Europe.

The cause of the Internet outage remains unclear. The Portuguese side believes the problem originated from Spain, while the Spanish side pointed the finger at the disruption of the Internet connection with France.

The Spanish newspaper El Vanguardia quoted Eduardo Prieto, the director of unified operations of the Spanish power grid operator REE, as saying that the interconnection failure between the Spanish and French power grids has led to large-scale power outages in most areas of the Iberian Peninsula where Spain and Portugal are located.

According to AFP, the street lamps in Madrid, the capital of Spain, and Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, were lit up again on Monday night. Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez said that nearly 50% of Spain's electricity supply was restored that night, but people in some areas still had to stay at home on Tuesday and were unable to go out to work.

Sanchez said that their goal is to continue restoring power supply within the next few hours, mainly from France and Morocco. He couldn't explain when the power supply would be fully restored.

On the Portuguese side, Acting Prime Minister Monte Negro said that electricity in Portugal would be fully restored within the next few hours. Despite numerous difficulties, all national services in Portugal are still operating normally.

Monegero also said there was no indication that the power outage was a cyber attack. Nevertheless, there were still rumors that the power outage might have been destructive. Sanchez said that he had a phone call with NATO Secretary General Rutte.

Portuguese airport operator ANA said Monday that flights from Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, are not expected to take off until 10 p.m. on Monday (5 a.m. Singapore time on Tuesday) due to a large-scale power outage on the Iberian Peninsula. The operations of Porto Airport and Faro Airport continue to be limited.