Power is gradually being restored across Spain and Portugal after a major blackout brought daily life to a halt. The power outage grounded flights, paralysed public transport, and disrupted hospital services. The exact cause of the outage remains uncertain.

In response to the crisis, Spain’s Interior Ministry declared a national emergency and deployed 30,000 police officers nationwide. Emergency cabinet meetings were held in both countries as leaders scrambled to address the situation. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed that power has been restored to about half of the country. Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro ruled out a cyberattack as the cause. Meanwhile, Portugal’s electricity operator REN warned that it could take up to a week to fully stabilise the grid. Parts of France also experienced short-lived outages, with French grid operator RTE stepping in to supply extra electricity to northern Spain.