'I can't call my family': How Spain was brought to a halt by blackout

Panicked customers scrambled to withdraw cash from banks and streets overflowed with crowds trying in vain to get a signal as a Spain-wide power outage plunged the country into chaos on Monday.

Carlos Condori, one of millions of people affected in Spain and Portugal, was travelling on the Madrid metro when the blackout brought his journey to a shuddering halt.

"The light went out and the carriage stopped," but the train managed to crawl into the platform, the 19-year-old construction sector worker told AFP outside a metro station in central Madrid.

"People were stunned, because this had never happened in Spain," he added. "There's no (phone) coverage, I can't call my family, my parents, nothing: I can't even go to work."

At Cibeles Square, one of the Spanish capital's busiest thoroughfares, the blackout of traffic lights unleashed a cacophony of sirens, whistles and car horns as police tried to control the pile-up of traffic.

Bewildered office workers congregated in streets with their computers made useless without internet, alongside residents were thankful they had not been trapped in lifts.

A disorientated Marina Sierra was trying to contact her dad and improvise a route home to the Madrid suburbs after her school was shut. "The building we were in was giving off smoke, they had to evacuate us quickly.... I'm shocked because everything is totally out of control," the 16-year-old student said.

'Not the end of the world'

Transport chaos also gripped Spain's second city Barcelona, where locals and tourists alike flooded the streets in a desperate attempt to find out what had happened.

Student Laia Montserrat, who lives one hour outside Barcelona, was in the middle of a presentation when the blackout struck her school and left her in a predicament.

"As the internet wasn't coming back, they told us to go home... (but) there weren't trains either," Laia told AFP. "Now we don't know what to do."

Leonor Abecasis, who was visiting the tourist hotspot from Portugal, was in a shop when she was plunged into darkness. "We're waiting for the electricity to come back," said the 27-year-old consultant. She admitted she was "a little" worried for her return flight to Lisbon later in the day.

Back in Madrid, a philosophical Pilar López tried to put into perspective the confusion and panic of her colleagues who were fretting about the perishable food they had left in their freezers.

"We've suffered a pandemic, I don't think this is worse," said the 53-year-old, an administrator in higher education. "It's like anything, you get used to it and start to think that this isn't the end of the world."

For López, the widespread bedlam provided a useful lesson: "Maybe we should go back to the beginnings and not depend so much on electricity in some things."

She added that "I can't even pay because my mobile isn't working. Sometimes you have to be a bit more analogue: this proves it."