Electricity has returned to parts of northern, southern and western Spain, the grid operator said on Monday, as a blackout sparked chaos for millions across the Iberian peninsula.
“Tension has now been restored in substations in several areas of the north, south and west of the peninsula, beginning to give supply to consumers in these areas,” Red Eléctrica said in a statement.
Power returned to parts of Barcelona around 3:30pm, but other neighbourhoods are still without electricity.
But, the Maresme region just north of Barcelona, has still been left without any.
IN PICTURES: Nationwide blackout causes chaos in Spain
Electricity was also restored in Seville and in Madrid, but some places in the north such as Asturias still don’t have any at the time of writing.
Málaga also has power and is slowly getting back to normal.
The power outage will, however, prevent Spain from restoring inter-city train services on Monday, the transport minister said, as the crisis left thousands of passengers stranded.
“Today it is not expected that the circulation of medium and long-distance trains will be restored… We are working so that, once the electricity supply is restored, we can resume those services, which will no longer be possible today,” Oscar Puente wrote on X.
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The power cut hit at 12:30pm and, ordinary people were left in the dark – often literally – as to what was happening.
Due to stop lights being knocked out, cars crawled or stopped altogether as police tried to direct traffic. Authorities told motorists to stay off the roads.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez held an emergency meeting on the situation, his office said in a Telegram message.
