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The Spanish Interior Ministry on Monday declared a state of emergency after a nationwide power blackout affected most of the Iberian Peninsula.
In a statement, the ministry said the emergency status would be applied in the regions that requested it.
Thus far, Madrid, Andalusia, and Extremadura have reportedly asked the central government to assume control of public order and other functions.
The Eastern Updates reports that a massive power outage brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill on Monday, grounding planes, halting public transport, causing panic buying, and leaving the two countries scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.
Read Also: Canada Suspends 25% Electricity Surcharge After Trump Threats
Some hospitals were said to have suspended routine operations, while some shops closed their doors.
“We do not yet have conclusive information on the reasons for this (power) cut, so I ask the people, as we have done in past crises, to inform themselves through official channels.
“For the time being, there’s no evidence of any civil protection problems. I repeat, there are no problems of insecurity,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a national address.
In other news, Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Tuesday said he had agreed to suspend a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exports to the United States.
This comes after he held a conversation with United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s threats to increase steel and aluminium tariffs on Canada by 50 per cent.
In a statement issued with Lutnick and posted on X, Ford said he and Lutnick would now be meeting on Thursday alongside the United States Trade Representative to discuss the renewal of the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement ahead of Trump’s self-imposed 2 April “reciprocal tariff deadline.”
