The Spanish power distributor calls it “exceptional and extraordinary.” Power went down just after noon and by nightfall only half of the power had been restored in Spain. The cause was not immediately clear Monday.

Power cuts have impacted as many as 50 million people across Spain and Portugal - causing huge disruption to public transport, airports and vital telecommunications networks

MADRID/LISBON (Reuters) -Power started returning to parts of the Iberian peninsula late on Monday after a huge outage brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill, grounding planes, halting public transport,