An unprecedented blackout leaves the country without power and no explanations.

BarcelonaCatalonia went back centuries this Monday. Hundreds of people were trapped on trains and the metro—some for more than eight hours—and almost everyone was cut off, without internet or telephone access, all day. Cooking hot food was almost impossible, as was paying by card, and most businesses had to close their doors. A general power outage has paralyzed the country, including Spain and Portugal, and the incident has still not been fully resolved. There have also been no conclusive explanations.

This unprecedented total power outage hit the Red Eléctrica system, the state's energy supply regulator, shortly after 12:30 p.m., and no activity has been able to escape it. Neither have healthcare centers, which have had to resort to alternative batteries and generators to ensure emergency care and carry out urgent interventions.

Red Eléctrica's director of operations services, Eduardo Prieto, admitted in an emergency appearance the exceptional nature of the events: "This has never happened before: we are talking about an extraordinary incident." According to the company's calculations, full service will not be fully restored before 1:00 a.m. this Tuesday: "Between 6 and 10 hours" from the incident, Prieto insisted.

While the line was gradually recovering—Catalonia reached 63% of the network restored by the evening—fear grew among government officials that it would fail again. For this reason, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for responsibility and caution in the use of electronic devices.

The causes of this unprecedented blackout are still unknown, and Sánchez himself has acknowledged that all options are on the table: from a system failure to a cyberattack. "The government will work to determine the cause, but the priority is to work to restore normality," Sánchez said. While the main hypothesis is a technical failure, no one (neither the Spanish president nor the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa) has officially commented on the reasons.

Prieto explained that the company "identified a sharp fluctuation in power flows, accompanied by a very significant loss of generation [...], and as a consequence, the Spanish system was disconnected from the rest of Europe." Spanish government sources confirmed to ARA that, suddenly, in just five seconds, 60% of Spain's electricity production disappeared. 15 gigawatts were lost, the equivalent of twice the entire electricity production of all the state's nuclear power plants combined.

Regarding the possibility that the electricity grid suffered a cyberattack, sources consulted by ARA explain that law enforcement has not found any evidence. "We're working with the goal of returning to normal [today]," Illa argued. Several crisis cabinet meetings have taken place in the Palau de la Generalitat and in the Moncloa Palace. "I was amazed," admitted one political official when he saw a map where all the areas affected by the outage had been marked with dots.

Medicines and freezers

At one of those points was Anna, who stood motionless from the door of her pharmacy on Barcelona's Rambla. The store was almost dark and customers weren't allowed in. Without electricity or internet, many pharmacies have been unable to sell medications with electronic prescriptions or collect payment without cash. Furthermore, some products require refrigeration: if the cold chain is broken, the medication spoils. "It happened suddenly. I don't understand it," Anna added.

Unrest was widespread on the streets. A delivery man with a cart full of packages was stopped in the middle of the street. "Without electricity, we can't work," he complained. Like him, many workers felt disoriented. They depend on online orders and couldn't see the address where they were supposed to make deliveries.

A few meters away, a security guard denied entry to everyone trying to access the Carrefour on the Rambla. "It's not possible, sorry, we don't have electricity," he explained. He did so in Catalan, Spanish, and also in English. The establishment has a generator that allows for refrigeration of products, which will prevent them from spoiling, but they are not entirely confident and decided to close their doors to the public.

In fact, many merchants—regardless of the size of the business—feared being robbed by the uncontrolled activity, especially those with electric gates. With the power cut, they have been left wide open. To avoid problems, the Mossos d'Esquadra doubled the number of officers on the street, reaching over 7,000. However, there have been no major security incidents, as Illa explained.

The power of electricity

"It's desperate because you can't pay, charge your phone, or do anything," said Miquel Garcia, an international business student at a school in the Eixample district. He lives in Sant Boi and was considering walking home because the trains weren't running either. In fact, the current that powers the trains stopped, and hundreds of people were trapped in tunnels, fields, and underground tracks. Those who were lucky got out within a few hours, guided by the police and their mobile phone flashlights along the tracks to the platforms.

In the morning, most of Catalonia's police officials were gathered at the Barcelona Conference Center, celebrating the Catalan capital's Day of the Squads. "We have passengers trapped in the metro," explained a Mossos d'Esquadra commander. "All trains are stopped," said a commuter train operator. "There are many people cut off in elevators," commented a municipal official. These have been the priorities of the police, who, overwhelmed, have not always been able to act immediately. It has taken eight hours before they were able to remove more than a thousand passengers from some AVE trains.

Gradually, the metro and the railways have been returning to normal, and this Tuesday the situation on the Cercanías (local commuter trains) is expected to begin to improve after the cancellation of all trains. More than 30,000 people have had to be evacuated from trains. In addition, the gears that raise and lower the elevators have also stopped, with hundreds of people inside. The emergency services have received more than 700 calls.

The life of generators

According to police sources, El Prat Airport was one of the first places where everything went dark, although its generators have an expected runtime of at least 48 hours. However, some flights have been canceled. Many passengers have been unable to reach El Prat. Chaos has also reigned on the roads, with mile-long queues at the entrance to Barcelona. Traffic in the capital has not been guided by the red and green lights turned off due to the power outage, but by volunteers wearing vests to guide traffic and drivers who simply braked when someone crossed.

The disconnection that many seek in rural areas without coverage has been found in the new Glòries Park, which has been packed with people. Many people have been unable to work, and the terraces have been filled with cold beers and vermouths. Strangers have gathered to listen through the radio of a car parked in a superblock to find out what was happening.

But the power of electricity has also shown that it can even play with our money. No data terminal has worked. Businesses closed, some supermarkets ran out of stock, and lines formed at ATMs in search of cash, the most precious commodity. At gas stations, gasoline was supplied by generators, the second most precious commodity. At police stations, appointments to renew documentation have been canceled; at universities, classes have been suspended—some, like those of Girona and the UAB, will still remain closed this Tuesday—and many parents have picked up their children early from school, although schools have maintained normal operations.

When night fell, the municipal sports centers opened to accommodate those who had been unable to return home. People applauded when the lights came back on, even though Barcelona's streets were uneven, some lit and others, like a section of La Rambla, completely dark.