Power outage pushes Portugal 'to the brink of a nervous breakdown'

A traffic jam of cars disoriented by the absence of traffic lights at a Lisbon intersection. This is the front-page photo offered Tuesday, April 29, by the Jornal de Negócios , which headlined: “A country on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” The Portuguese business daily lists in its headline some of the collateral damage of the massive power outage that affected Spain and, therefore, Portugal the day before – and again on the morning of April 29.

"Traffic chaos, rushes to the shops, the return of text messages and chaos in businesses," the newspaper quotes, before adding that the generators that provided refrigeration ultimately did not prevent the closure of some supermarkets, forced to shut down their checkouts due to a lack of power.

In an editorial titled “The Fragility of Routines,” Diana Ramos, director of Negócios, notes the butterfly effect of a problem whose origins are still unknown:

“It only takes one small cog to turn things around and nothing we take for granted is actually taken for granted. This Monday [April 28], we went back to the ^19th century, during what was probably one of the most serious power outages in the country's recent history.”

The last one, she notes, was in 2000, when a stork struck a high-voltage power line, plunging Lisbon and southern Portugal into total darkness. This time, the “inexplicable return to the past” has raised new questions.

The editorialist denounces the government's inaction and concludes: "Today's reality is not compatible with vague, short, insufficient and grey explanations that only fuel mistrust."