A Spanish resident has revealed the unexpected reaction of some people when a massive power outage hit Spain and Portugal. The two countries were plunged into darkness on Monday, April 28, causing widespread disruption.
Power cuts left residents without electricity or mobile phone signal, and flights and train services were suspended. However, Alex Socoloff, founder of Produx Design, a digital agency in Barcelona, took to social media platform X to share what people really did during the blackout. And his post wasn’t what people expected.
He tweeted: “Massive power blackout in Spain and Portugal! No internet, payments are off and flights are cancelled. Media: Chaos! People are in Panic! What really happened: We just took blankets, beer and had a great time all together.”
Accompanying his tweet was a photo showing groups of people relaxing on the grass in a park, seemingly unfazed by the situation.
Spain’s national grid operator, Red EleÌctrica de EspanÌa, confirmed that as of 6am, 99.16% of mainland power demand had been restored.
Portugal’s grid operator REN announced on X that all substations in the country’s grid were restored by 11:30pm last night, attributing the event to an ‘external origin’.
Thousands of metro passengers were evacuated in Barcelona yesterday after a massive blackout hit Spain and Portugal, according to Spanish news outlet El Mundo.
The metro in Valencia was also suspended, while parts of Madrid’s underground were evacuated due to power outages, and traffic lights stopped functioning.
Air travel was severely disrupted, with power cuts at Madrid’s Barajas airport and thousands stranded at Valencia airport, where arrivals and departures were delayed.
However, backup generators were activated at airports across Spain, as reported by Aena, the public body operating the majority of Spanish airports.
Bars and cash machines were unable to process transactions. Elsewhere, sport was impacted by the blackout as play was suspended at the Madrid Open tennis tournament,
Power was lost while two singles matches and one doubles match at the ATP Masters 1000 event were underway.
Meanwhile, Alex’s tweet showing how some people coped with the blackout has garnered 487,800 views, 7,100 likes, and more than 200 comments. One user responded: “Can we have one in America next? Kinda sounds nice.”
Another said: “We haven’t had a carefree day like this since the times of Covid.” A third user suggested: “Maybe this should happen every month for [a] weekend everywhere?”
Comments ranged from gushing “this is cute tho (though)”, “very European of you”, and praiseful “perfect!”
Yet, the humour was lost on some, as one person pointed out: “Spaniards – yes. But tourists – no. Also not thousands of people who were stranded somewhere and had to go pick up their kids or relatives or just do something important.”
Additionally, another remarked pragmatically: “Really? What about all the refrigerated food all over every household and store? Just to name one big issue with the situation.”
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