Today's Edition
MADRID (AFP)
Lights came back on across Madrid late Monday as Spain's power operator said it was progressively overcoming a massive power outage that plunged the Iberian peninsula into darkness.
More than 35 percent of Spain's power demand was being met, the country's REE electricity operator. Portugal's operator said it had also made gains in overcoming the outage.
By 8:35 pm (1835 GMT) REE was meeting "35.1 percent of demand", Eduardo Prieto, REE's operations director, told Cadena Ser radio.
In Madrid, traffic lights and the storefronts of shops slowly became lit up in different districts.
REE said earlier that power was being "progressively" restored across the country.
Meanwhile Portugal's REN power operator was aiming for full restoration by Tuesday.
"I hope we will manage to balance the whole system during the night," REN administrator Joao Faria Conceicao told journalists.
Already some 750,000 customers, out of some 6.5 million, were back online Monday evening including the whole of the city of Porto.
REN reiterated there was still no firm cause for the shock mass outage.
