Europe @feddit.org caesaravgvstvs @feddit.org 3mo ago

General blackout in the Iberian peninsula

www.rtve.es Apagón masivo en España del 28 de abril de 2025: así te lo hemos contado

Apagón masivo en España del 28 de abril de 2025: así te lo hemos contado

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Today's episode of "Malfunction or Moscow?"
- Auto-translated:
  
  15:31 : Ribera says that nothing points to the blackout in Spain and Portugal being intentional
  
  The vice president of the European Commission (EC) for the Clean Transition, Teresa Ribera, says that the blackout recorded in Spain and Portugal is one of the "most important" in recent years and points out that nothing allows us to think that it has been intentional. "There is nothing that allows us to make us think that there is anything intentional," Ribera also said in statements to the press. (EFE)
  
  Speculation is fun, but ... :)
  
  Thanks! Yeah it's important to stick to the evidence. Otherwise it'll seem like cyber attacks are much more prevalent than they actually are which helps Putin. But it's hard not to have that initial reaction when hearing about fires and blackouts in Europe lately.
- Both Spanish and Portugese officals have been talking about the possibility of a cyber attack. The fact that hours later we do not know what happened makes that unforunatly a possibility.
Whatever the cause, this doesn’t look good. About 60 million people without power.

At least in Valencia there’s cell service, as I was able to WhatsApp some family there to check on them.
- Some cell towers have battery backups.
I am in southern Spain right now. Power came back about 30 minutes ago.

It is interesting how quiet a city can be.
- Without cars cities are pretty quiet
  
  Right, and quite pretty!
  
  @driving_crooner @Saleh
Some data carriers with difficultues and broadcasting stations worked but on the street level trains, metros and traffic lights are still off in many places after 10 hours.

The Spanish and Portuguese presidents are saying that they don’t dismiss any hypothesis, but the only info beoadcasted through the news were that there was an overload in some point of the grid that created a domino effect and left all the system without voltage
- I don't think Spain has a president. It is a kingdom
  
  Edit: I stand corrected. They call the leaders of goverments presidents.
  
  You are right, of course. But the Spanish PM is called ‘President of the government’, and informally, ‘President’.
  
  Spain is a parliamentary monarchy, the King is the head of the Estate and a symbolic figure but doesn’t have power over the Parliament. In Spain we don’t use the title “prime minister” we have a President of the government and a president for each of the 16 autonomic regions (similar to federated estates).
Damn squirrels
- I laughed...
A cyberattack? We will know, in time. For now, this is an ongoing issue and a Carrington event is equally possible. Or, just a human error. Look for past outages, it could happen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages
- I think it would be more widespread if it was a true Carrington event. Might still be a mini one. Actually kind of rooting for this to be the case because then the only bad actors are the politicians and power company administrators that have ignored the warnings. Might lead to reforms worldwide.
- Canada would be more susceptible to that than Spain. Also, there were no large CMEs in the last few days.
- There has been no space weather event remotely close to a Carrington one
Power cut chaos in Spain and Portugal caused by 'rare' atmospheric phenomenon, says operator
I'm just visiting the Algarve.

Luckily I found some store that had a free open wifi network (they had a server room so still had power). There were people lining up to use payphones (interestingly they still have them here).

Otherwise, no wifi, no data, no phone network, so no information on the whole situation. Can't pay by card. Had a bag of chips for dinner because I can't cook. Couldn't book accommodation or a bus. Shops used pen, paper and calculator but took only cash. People barely have cash at hand and ATMs were out too.

I don't know what I could've done without money if this would have lasted even longer.

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