Canary Islands power outage plunges millions into darkness one week after Spain

A power outage is reported to have hit the Canary Islands, only a week after millions were plunged into darkness in Spain and Portugal

A power outage in the Canary Islands has plunged thousands into darkness, only one week after the blackout in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and parts of France.

Around 9.57am this morning the power was cut to certain areas of La Palma, with over 30,000 in 20 towns left without access to light or electricity.

Areas of Santa Cruz de La Palma, Los Llanos de Aridane, El Paso, Tazacorte, Breña Alta, and Puntallana were all affected, with La Palma's council urging residents and tourists to "keep calm," and avoid overwhelming emergency services while officials attempted to recover power.

READ MORE: Spain power cut reason becomes clearer as national grid operator issues statement

While it is not clear what caused the power cut which affected about a third of residents in La Palma, the Canary Islands' distribution grid, E-distribución said it was due to a "fault" at the Los Guinchos power plant, according to the Metro.

The mayor of Los Llanos, Javier Llama, told La Radio Canaria at around midday that half of the power to the affected areas had been restored, but officials urged individuals to avoid "turning on electronic devices at the same time to avoid saturating the electrical network," once full electricity capacity had been restored.

It has been reported since the mayor's message earlier, power has been fully returned to the island, according to the Mirror.

In an earlier post on X (Twitter), discussing the blackout, La Palma council said: "The island suffered another power outage today, this time lasting more than 45 minutes, affecting more than a third of users.

"The incident occurred at the Los Guinchos power plant. Red Eléctrica and Endesa technicians are investigating the cause."

Fernando González, La Palma's Energy Minister said power cuts can cause "serious harm, especially to the most vulnerable sectors and to companies whose production is disrupted."

READ MORE: British expat in Spain lays bare truth over what blackout was really like

Last week, a power outage affected parts of Spain, Portugal, Andorra and France plunging millions of people into darkness.

Local residents and tourists could not pay by card or contactless, and were left without mobile service in some cases as the electricity outage commenced.

Social media users shared horror stories of being stuck on trains for over nine hours, as well as shop shelves laid bare as people began 'panic-buying' in a similar fashion to the scenes from the Covid pandemic.

Power was restored 24 hours after the incident, returning electricity to those affected by the blackout.