Mobile Network Hit, Total Chaos At Grocery Stores: What Caused A Total Blackout In Spain

<p>Spain and parts of Portugal witnessed a total blackout on Monday causing widespread disruptions and travel chaos. The outage left government buildings, including Spain&rsquo;s Parliament, subway systems, airports and grocery stores without power. The cities that got affected include Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao and Lisbon. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared a state of emergency, while Portuguese PM Lu&iacute;s Montenegro said there was “no indication” that the power cut was caused by a cyber attack.</p>
<p>Drivers in Spain were urged not to use their cars unless necessary, and phones should be used “responsibly” as telecommunications were at a “critical moment”.</p>
<h2>What All Got Affected Due To Power Outage</h2>
<p>Transport, including trains, metros and airports</p>
<p>Traffic lights are also down</p>
<p>Internet and mobile coverage</p>
<p>Lighting in homes, businesses and other buildings</p>
<p>ATMs and card payments</p>
<p>Lifts in buildings were stuck</p>
<p>Electric car chargers and fuel pumps were also down</p>
<p>Air conditioning units</p>
<p>A significant number of water pumps, meaning some homes had no access to drinking water&nbsp;</p>
<h2>What Caused Power Outage In Spain?</h2>
<p>Portuguese grid operator said a ‘rare atmospheric phenomenon’ could be behind outage and the disruption could last a week. It said due to extreme temperature variations in Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations” in very high-voltage lines.</p>
<p>This is known as “induced atmospheric variation”, which in turn led to oscillations which caused synchronisation failures between systems, it added.</p>
<p>That led to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network, the operator said, adding that it could take up to a week for the network to fully normalise again.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spain’s PM Sanchez, however, said there was still no definitive information regarding the cause of the widespread power blackout affecting much of the Iberian Peninsula. Half of Spain’s power was restored by the night.</p>