Authorities say a major power outage in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands left nearly 1 million people without electricity.
MADRID — A MAJOR power outage in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands left nearly 1 million people without electricity, authorities said Sunday.
The local government said that the outage had affected “the entire island,” but that emergency generators were working for basic services such as hospitals. Within hours, Spain’s electrical network said 65% of power had been restored.
Emergency services said crews had responded to over 700 incidents related to the blackout by evening. Officials said the calls mostly involved people trapped in elevators, alarms that were triggered, and doors that had to be forced open.
Patricia Hernández, the mayor of Tenerife’s capital, told Cadena SER that authorities were investigating the cause of the outage.
Tenerife is part of the Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwestern coast of Africa. A key tourist destination, the islands have over 900,000 residents in addition to hosting tens of thousands of tourists and dozens of cruise ships each year.