“A Serious Act of Sabotage.” First a Blackout, Then Rail Paralysis in Spain

Just as Spain was coming to terms with the effects of Europe's worst power outage in years , there were further serious disruptions to train traffic. This time, there are many indications that this was the result of a deliberate act.

More than 10,000 passengers in Spain experienced massive disruption on Sunday, May 5, after cable lines were stolen at several points in the province of Toledo. Many travelers were stranded in stations and on trains.

Spain's railways paralyzed. Cables stolen

The disruption affected passengers on more than 30 trains between Madrid and Seville, many of whom were returning from their journeys over the bank holiday weekend. The last 10 trains did not return to service until around 2:30 a.m. on Monday, with repairs continuing through the night. Delays of up to an hour were caused by the work.

Spain's Guardia Civil is investigating the incident, which involved four separate incidents within a 10-kilometre radius.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente described the incident as a “serious act of sabotage” and called on the public to help identify those responsible.

Difficulties on the Madrid-Seville route

He also visited places on the Madrid-Seville route where cable lines were probably stolen.

"All hypotheses remain open. This visit allows us to better understand the dynamics of the events. The goal is to explain the crime, bring the perpetrators to justice as quickly as possible and draw conclusions from what happened in order to prevent similar incidents in the future. The cooperation of all citizens is welcome," he informed on the X portal.

To this day, it has not been explained what caused the blackout in Spain, Portugal and France on April 28. One hypothesis is the overload of outdated power grids due to the large overproduction of electricity from RES (renewable energy sources).

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