Spain and Portugal experience major power outage

Spain and Portugal have regained access to electricity after one of Europe's worst blackouts paralysed transport systems, disrupted mobile communications and postponed medical procedures. For almost a day from Monday to early on Tuesday, tens of millions of people were plunged into darkness.

A day without power: What 12 hours of darkness looked like in Spain and Portugal. People wait on the stairs at Atocha train station in Madrid, during a massive power outage that left Spain and Portugal in the dark for hours.

According to The Associated Press, Spain's roughly 49 million inhabitants saw their country's power generation drop by around 15 gigawatts — roughly 60% of the typical real-time demand in the nation — in the space of just five seconds, starting just after noon local time on Monday.