EPA
Customers wait at the Lisbon airport
The first indication of trouble that Peter Hughes noticed was when the train to Madrid began to slow down.
After that, the TV monitor and lights went out. The emergency lights were turned on, but it didn’t last long, and the locomotive stopped.
Four hours later, Mr. Hughes was still stuck on a train 200km (124 miles) from the Spanish capital. He had food and water, but the toilet was not working.
“It’s going to get dark soon and you could get stuck here for hours,” he told the BBC.
The massive blackout that Hughes is stuck has caused confusion across Spain and Portugal, affecting Andorra and parts of France from around local time (10:00 GMT).
The signal has stopped. The metro has closed. Businesses were closed and people joined the queue to earn cash as their card payments went wrong.
Jonathan Emery was on another train midway through Seville and Madrid when the cut hit.
For an hour he sat on the train, the door closed. After 30 minutes, the passengers left just to get stuck.
That was when people from the local village came and began to unload supplies such as water, bread, fruits and more.
“No one is charging anything. People keep coming, so the language must be spinning in the local town,” he said.
Jonathan Emery
Emery explained the generosity of the locals after the train stopped moving.
In Madrid, Hannah Lowney was on her way to scan her grocery shopping with Aldi when the power came out.
People left the office and walked home as they didn’t know when the bus would arrive, Lowney said in an audio message sent to BBC Radio 5 Live.
“It’s a bit confusing that it’s nationwide. I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.
Mark England was having lunch at a hotel restaurant. He is on vacation in Benidorm.
At the International School in Lisbon, the electricity was on and off for a while before they gave up, teacher Emily Sawodo said.
She continued to teach in the darkness and the children were welling up, but many parents were taking their children out of school, she said.
Watch: Traffic chaos as a blackout in the faces of Spain and Portugal
Will David, a British man living in Lisbon, had a haircut and beard trim in the barber’s basement when his strength dipped. The barber found him by the window upstairs and finished the cut with scissors.
“It felt very strange to get home. Both meant that people are completely free to vehicles and pedestrians on the road, and many people roaming outside their work place without doing anything,” he said.
Initially, the mobile network also went down due to some, leaving many scrambles behind.
Curtis Gradden, who is in Laval Dowixo, about 30 miles from Valencia, said he was “scary” as he struggles to get updates on what’s going on.
Eloise Eddington, who was unable to work as a copywriter in Barcelona, said he only gets messages from time to time, unable to load web pages on his phone, and is trying to save battery.
Mark England
No lights: Traffic lights remained blank in Benidorm and elsewhere
An hour and a half after the electricity was generated, one of the Fortuna in southeastern Spain, said her husband was operating and is trying to find a gas station that can run the generator and fuel it to keep the refrigerator powered.
“We’re worried about food, water, cash and gasoline in case this lasts for several days,” said Leslie, Britt, who has lived in Spain for 11 years.
Locals are “more worried,” she said, than Madrid’s open tennis tournament being suspended.
While walking down the streets of Benidorm, England said, “The majority of shops are locked up in the dark or some people say they can’t come in. There are no cash equipment, no signal.
Mark England
Mark England (left) was on vacation with his partner Johnny Smith when the power cut hit.
After Gladden’s phone signal returned about two hours later, he and the others went out to the cafe, “I found out nothing was working. I started getting food and drinks, but I can’t cook without electricity.”
Within two hours, Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica said it was beginning to recover electricity in the north and south of the country.
But two and a half hours after the cut, Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez Almeida urged all residents to “stay where they are, to an absolute minimum and as much as possible.”
At 3:00pm local time, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez compiled a “extraordinary” meeting of the Spanish National Security Council.
Red Electrica CEO Eduardo Prieto said at a press conference it could take “6 to 10 hours” to recover power.
Just before 4pm, the electricity was messed up in Malaga. By 5pm, the grid operator said “power is being restored in several areas, north, south and west.” [Iberian] Peninsula.”
Portuguese power company Ren made more disastrous predictions, saying it would take up to a week for the network to return to normal.
“We have no plans as to where we’re going to stay.”
The knock-on effect continues: the airport backup generator kicks, allowing most flights to depart on time, but some flights were unoperated.
Tom McGilloway, on a Lisbon holiday, was due to return to London on Monday night, but as of the evening he had no idea what would happen.
He said people were getting drinks and food for the time being, but the vendors said they could continue working at the payment terminal until the battery runs out.
“If the plane has been cancelled, if you need to book a hotel, if your payments are reduced, you don’t know how you can,” he added.
“My partner’s parents are trying to get some gas, so they can pick us up and take us to Allentejo, but many gas stations are closed or have not been paid. They may not have plans for a place to stay tonight.”
Additional reports and investigations by Andree Massiah, Kris Bramwell, James Kelly, Bernadette McCague and Josh Parry
