Tens of millions of people across Spain and Portugal have been plunged into a huge power blackout blamed by the Portuguese operator on extreme temperature variations, leaving them without trains, metros, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections and internet access.
People were trapped in lifts, stuck on trains, stalled in traffic and abandoned in airports. Hundreds stumbled along pitch-black metro tunnels using their phone torches; others scrambled for basics in supermarkets that could only take cash, or began long trudges home from work.
