7 May 2025

A lesson from inside Spain’s mega blackout

8 min read

It’s how every apocalyptic blockbuster movie begins. On a regular day in a big city the electricity suddenly cuts out… and then the phone network goes dead. Setting the perfect scene for unfolding chaos.

This scenario is precisely what happened in Spain last week.

On Monday (April 28) at 12:33 pm I was at my computer at home in central Madrid when the power cut out. My husband groaned from his office in the next room. It’s not unusual for the power to trip in our apartment thanks to a temperamental safety switch. I took out my phone to deal with the offending switch. In the torchlight I could see the fuse box looked fine. Realising the whole building was powerless, I headed down to the street to investigate.

All the traffic lights on the block were out. People were hovering in front of their buildings, chatting and shrugging amongst themselves. Across the street, two people held their phones at arm’s length above their heads.

I went home, ate lunch and waited for the power to come back on. After an hour had passed we went for a walk to find some phone reception.

Back on the street the scene was calm but busy. Emergency vehicles with sirens blaring navigated their way through the heaving traffic. The metro had been evacuated but the buses continued to run. They were crammed full of passengers and every stop had dozens more waiting to get on. A constant stream of people headed away from the centre on foot. Many stopped to ask directions, as they didn’t know the way without maps on their phones to guide them.

People walking out of central Madrid.

We made our way up the hill and found a sliver of phone signal. and my phone lit up with notifications. A message from a friend in Barcelona that said, “There is no electricity in all Spain, Portugal, and Andorra.” A few more messages from other friends confirmed it. The entire nation was out and no one had any idea why.

That was when the phone signal completely dropped out.

I took a moment to process this. A deep breath while gazing up into the crystal blue sky above us. It was another stunning 23-degree early spring day. If this was the apocalypse, it seemed the weather hadn’t received the memo.

I tried to call my daughter’s school with no success, so decided to go on foot to collect her. We changed into sneakers and together, my husband and I trekked the 4kms out of the city centre to her school in the suburbs. As we arrived at the gates, we were greeted by a friend who was also picking up his kids. He threw his arms into the air and cheered, “Bienvenidos al fin del mundo!”.

Welcome to the end of the world.

Neighbours huddle around a car, listening to the radio.

By the time we’d walked home it was five hours since the power had cut. I did a stocktake of the food in the fridge, and pulled the Christmas tree lights back out from the high cupboard, along with a stockpile of batteries.

The truth was that we were totally underprepared for the end of the world. While I can leave my house on a normal day and need nothing more than my phone and house keys, today my digital swiss-army knife of a device had been rendered useless. I didn’t have any cash, as I usually just tap my phone – so I had to use the coins from a jar by the front door to buy supplies. We didn’t have a radio, so we weren’t getting any information at all about what was going on in Spain or anywhere else in the world. We didn’t even have a torch as we’d always used our phones. All these missing items would have been household staples 20 years ago. But in 2025, in a digital world bending under the weight of AI and hyperconnectivity – we were suddenly powerless and in the dark.

Literally and figuratively.

We weren’t alone. Out in the streets, our neighbours gathered around parked cars. The doors were wide open and the radio was cranked so everyone could listen to the updates. A local electronics store was shuttered, with a handwritten sign saying “We don’t have any radios” taped to the roller door.

As the sun went down we fired up the Christmas lights and passed the time as we had in the early days of the pandemic – with an angsty game of Scrabble.

Christmas in July April. 

And then, at 9:30pm the lights came on to a cheer that could be heard from all directions. One minute later the internet was back to even louder applause. And just like that it was over – the end of the world had finished almost as quickly as it had begun.

In a flurry of browser windows I scanned the news. It seemed that the apocalypse was not only cancelled but didn’t even exist outside of Spain and Portugal. There were no zombies and no World War Three – just a return to regular Monday night programming.

In the days since many have pointed to the European Commission’s recent suggestion that its citizens were underprepared for an emergency. It urged households to prepare an emergency kit with basic supplies in the event of a crisis. At the time it was published, it seemed a bit extreme. But after the events of this week, I’d agree that we could all be a little more prepared. In a world where we are so reliant on digital technology, even just a little cash, an old radio, and a decent torch can go a long way.