**"Powerless Panic: Spain and Portugal Plunge into Chaos Amid Historic Blackout"**

- **Panic-buying:** Major blackouts in Spain and Portugal have led to widespread panic-buying as people rush to supermarkets to stock up on essentials. Shelves emptied quickly, and long queues formed at ATMs.

- **Rare atmospheric phenomenon:** Portugal's electricity grid operator stated that the outages were caused by "a rare atmospheric phenomenon." Extreme temperature fluctuations led to abnormal oscillations in ultra-high voltage power lines, triggering cascading failures in the European grid.

- **Transport chaos:** Metro services shut down in major cities, leaving trains stranded in tunnels and causing extensive traffic disruptions as traffic lights went out. Police were deployed at key intersections to direct vehicles manually.

🚨 BLACKOUT CHAOS: SPAIN, PORTUGAL — AND NOW PARTS OF FRANCE AND BELGIUM

What started as a blackout in Spain and Portugal just got bigger — now parts of France, Belgium, and even tiny Andorra are getting hit too.

Trains stopped, traffic lights failed, and phones cut out —… https://t.co/3f87soBqif pic.twitter.com/ZAV9gcTarn

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 28, 2025