Where were you when the lights went off?
Yesterday a 14-hour blackout hit Spain.
On 28th April 2025, Spain experienced a forced disconnection from, well, everything. El apagón hit at 12:30pm. Power was returned to Galicia at around 2am. Phone signal left the chat, shops couldn’t take card or refrigerate stock, smoke billowed from chimneys as factories ground to a halt, and neighbours roamed the streets in desperate search of bread.
When it happened, I’d barely woken up. I’d arrived back from Porto at 5:30am and had headed straight to sleep before my evening work shift. Sophia called out that the electrics weren’t working. We tried restarting the fuze, thinking our electrics had just overpowered as they do when we use the microwave and the toaster at the same time. Worried, I texted my landlady. ‘Es común en toda España’, she replied.
I’m going to approach the blackout from two sides.
It was a great day
It was a nightmare
I was lucky, I had some food in from before my trip to Porto. 5€ in my purse got me some bits to get by at the corner shop. Two bottles of water, a tin of sardines, 2 tomatoes. People came in, searching for fresh bread, averse to eating pan bimbo even during a blackout. I would like to express my utmost gratitude to the owner of the Alimentación, who stayed open serving customers who could pay cash, weighing veg by sight and calculating totals on paper. Thanks to my acquisition of tomatoes and sardines, I managed to eat well. The owner asked one of my neighbours, “what can I get for you?”. “Luz!*”, he shouted back.
*Luz means electricity in Spanish
When the power went off I returned to bed to lie a little longer, texting my family to let them know what was happening. At this point I had phone signal, which didn’t last.
No signal meant no communications. I turned up at work to find the gates shut and a sign written in pen stating ‘hoxe todas las clases fichadas’**. What was left to do except lie bronzing ourselves on the beach? An obvious option given the circumstances. I relished a free day to rest after my long journey from Porto to A Coruña earlier that morning. It was a treat to spend time with friends, to be free from work, to enjoy the sun which shone bright in the sky throughout the day.
**Galician. ‘All classes cancelled today’
In Spain, the streets were full of people - walking, playing sports, drinking beer before it got too warm. Our screen time was practically 0, as after a while all hope of phone signal was out the window. The streets were full of people without phones. Phone usage had returned to a healthy level now that we physically couldn’t rely on them. A shop owner in the city gave out ice cream to passersby before it had the chance to melt, showing a human kindness during crisis. We were lucky with the weather. Everyone was outside. Having had no screens, no light, no digital stimulation, I fell straight to sleep at 22:30. I woke up at 8:30 with the sun, my phone long since dead and no analogue alarm to set.
Personally, I had an overall lovely day. That doesn’t mean, though, that I wasn’t scared. No one knew what was happening. Rumours spread through the streets. Is it Russia? Is it Trump? Is it wildfires? It’ll last 3 days. It’ll last 16 hours. My Dad started off sending me updates via WhatsApp, but after a while I couldn’t receive them. Messages to my boyfriend, “¿cómo están los abus?”, left unsent. We had no way of fact checking anything, there was absolutely no connection. I couldn’t text my loved ones to let them know I was okay. I knew they’d be worrying.
Lifts stopped at 12:30pm - with people inside them. They were stuck. Young people, old people, a pregnant woman, children. Firemen had to break down a wall to free a man who had been imprisoned for 5 hours. Those unable to take stairs couldn’t leave their flats for food or water. In Madrid, the metros stopped mid-tunnel. Cross-country trains grounded to a halt in the middle of miles of fields, passengers left spending 10 hours waiting for assistance.
Supermarkets and shops couldn’t sell produce but couldn’t close their electronically powered automatic doors. They couldn’t turn on their alarm systems. Shop owners were left standing in the doorways of their establishments, unable to open but unable to close. After my 5€ spends, I’d run out of cash. No power meant no ATMs. If the apagón had continued for any longer, I would have been stuck with no food or safe drinking water.
As the evening went on the realisation set in that there would be no light in the city after 10pm. There would be no CCTV, no alarms, no signal to contact emergency services. That’s more than enough to put you on edge. I imagine there were lootings, at least in bigger cities. As we took a relaxing walk along the promenade, sun setting, I desperately looked out for any signs of returning light.
Where were you when the lights went off?
I hope you were safe, I hope you had cash and you could look out for your older relatives. If you didn’t have work, I hope you enjoyed the break and got to switch off from the world. There’s a mix of feedback on socials today about the blackout. Romanticisation vs empathy. From my experience, it was a mix of both. I enjoyed disconnecting for a day, but I felt the fear of the unknown, of being cut off, of running out of basic necessities. As life returns to normality today, it’s still unclear what caused the blackout. I don’t have work again today - woohoo! So you lucky things get to receive my recount of the events instead. I hope you found it insightful.
Me alegro que pasaras el apagón bien, sin ninguna incidencia!!!