Europe power cuts LIVE: Entire grid of Spain and Portugal goes offline as other countries report outages

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Images from Barcelona show the impact of the power cut on public transport. 

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told reporters the cause of the power cut is still unknown and has warned against speculation.

He urged people to "turn to official channels for information" to avoid falling "for disinformation". 

He also asked the public to use phones "responsibly", urging people to only use phones for brief calls and necessary communication while the system is being fully re-established.

Red Electrica, which operates the national electricity grid in Spain, said via X: "The recovery of the electricity supply is progressing in different areas of the country. 

"There is already electricity supply in areas of Catalonia, Aragon, the Basque Country, Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias, Navarre, Castile and Leon, Extremadura and Andalusia."

Monday’s play at the Madrid Open has been cancelled due to the power outage.

Britain’s Jacob Fearnley was forced off court when play was initially suspended just after 12.30pm local time.

The third-round tie between Fearnley and Grigor Dimitrov had reached a critical stage, Fearnley breaking the 15th seed’s serve to stay in the match, when a loss of power in the local area affected scoreboards and the camera above the court.

A statement posted on the Madrid Open’s X account read: “For reasons beyond the control of the organisation and in order to guarantee general safety, the nationwide power-cut experienced in Spain on Monday April 28 has forced the cancellation of both the day and night sessions at the Mutua Madrid Open.”

New footage emerging from the nation's transport network show stranded passengers making their along railway lines after trains ground to a halt. 

The footage, emerging across social media, show Spain's transport networks spanning several cities at a standstill.

It comes amid widespread travel disruption across sea, land and train.

Engineers in Portugal say the weather's to blame for a massive power cut there and in Spain.

They say some wires couldn't cope with the extreme variation in temperatures. 

Pictures have emerged of passengers standing next to a stopped RENFE high-speed AVE train near Cordoba in Spain.

In an update, network Red Eléctrica shared that voltage has been restored in substations in several areas in the north, south, and west of the peninsula, with consumers in those areas beginning to be supplied.

Portugal's grid operator, REN (Rede Eletrica Nacional) claimed interruptions to the country's power supply were the result of a "fault in the Spanish electricity grid".

They said this was related to a "rare atmospheric phenomenon", namely "extreme temperature variations".

Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were "anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as 'induced atmospheric vibration'".

"These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network."

Spain has yet to respond to the claim.

REN added that normalisation of the system could take up to a week.

Earlier, it was claimed by the head of Spain's electricity network restoring power could take around six to 10 hours.