This rather primitive device helped people during a power outage in Spain

Spaniards reveal the only form of communication during an electrical outage.

On April 28th, 2025, a sudden power outage paralysed Spain, most of Portugal, and even parts of southern France.

It’s been reported that the outage caused major disruption on the streets, which soon became one massive traffic jam due to traffic lights being off. No other means of transportation could be used during this time.

Citizens and city guests in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Lisbon, and Seville were left stranded. They had to evacuate the underground trains, could not pay for things with their cards, or use the internet.

Such situations are extremely difficult for hospitals, which in this case were running on generators.

Generators were also used to maintain telephone connections, reports El País, with Telefónica, a Spanish operator, using them to support at least a part of its network, while Vodafone’s active mobile network has dropped 35% during the outage.

The Internet connection and television were disrupted that day, with programs no longer being broadcast and the Internet connection remaining highly unstable.

Weak connectivity made it harder for users to call, send text messages, or contact others through social media platforms.

Since the reason for the outage and the estimated time it would take to bring the power back were unknown, it was feared that the power from generators wouldn’t be enough.

In such situations, it’s important to stay informed at all times. However, there are not that many options for staying on the loop.

What helped thousands of people affected by the outage that day was a radio. Those who had the device that runs on batteries could get the recent updates through the national radio of Spain (Radio Nacional de España, or RNE), reports Numerama.

Since not many still use radios, it’s been shared that people would gather on the street around battery-powered radios to listen to the latest information and recommendations provided by the government.

On Tuesday morning, it was announced that electricity was restored in 99% of Spain and most of Portugal. The cause of the power outage is still unknown, but speculations vary from a possible cyberattack to a “fault in the Spanish electricity grid,” according to Reuters.