An unprecedented blackout plunged much of Spain and Portugal into darkness on Monday (April 28), stranding thousands of train passengers and leaving approximately 55 million people without light.
“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” said Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, explaining that the nation’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts—the equivalent of 60% of its national demand—in five seconds.
REN, Portugal’s electricity and gas supplier, said that power had been restored to all of its substations by late Monday. Spain had recovered more than 92% of its power by 5 am on Tuesday.
