Spain and Portugal power cuts chaos as transport and internet shut down

As many as 50 million people across Spain and Portugal have been hit with huge power cuts - causing huge disruption to public transport, airports and vital telecommunications networks.

Madrid's main airport has been hit, the city's subway evacuated and traffic lights in the city turned off following the sudden interruption to the electricity supply around midday, with similar scenes reported across the country and further afield. The metro is also no longer running, while , 5G and landline telephones are reported to be down in both countries. Spanish electricity firm Red Electrica said the entire Iberian peninsula has been affected by the outage, adding that the incident is "being assessed and responded to". Spain's state-run railway company, Renfe, said the nation's "entire National Electricity Grid was cut off" at 12.30 local time (11.30 BST), forcing trains to suddenly stop and halting departures at all stations. Some southern areas of also reported being affected by the blackout.

Airports in Spain and Portugal say they have been hit by the power cuts, though many already have generators installed as a contingency plan.

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An update from Red Electrica at 12.40pm said power was being restored to the north and south of Spain.

It said teams were working to "gradually" restore the electricity supply.

No issues have been reported in Gibraltar, which is so far believed to be the only part of the Iberian peninsula not affected.

The Canary Islands, which are located 850 miles southwest of mainland Spain, are also unaffected.

British tennis star Jacob Fearnley was meanwhile forced off court as play was suspended at the Madrid Open due to the power outage.

The third-round tie between Mr Fearnley and Grigor Dimitrov had reached a critical stage, with the Brit breaking the 15th seed's serve to stay in the match when a loss of power hit scoreboards and the camera above the court.

The positioning of the camera when it lost power meant the match could not continue even with line judges, as it was stuck in the eyeline of the players.

After remaining on court for some time the pair were eventually taken inside to wait for the issue to be fixed.

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