Blackout leaves over 50,000 without power on Spain's La Palma amid torrential rain

A blackout left more than 50,000 customers without electricity on Spain's Canary Island of La Palma early Monday as torrential rain battered the island, authorities said. Power had been restored to about 75% of those affected by midmorning, roughly four and a half hours after the outage began, according to national grid operator Red Electrica. The Canary Islands government said the island lost electricity at 6.42 am local time (0642GMT).

A lightning strike hit an electrical substation around 4 am, sparking a fire that knocked out medium- and low-voltage lines. Although service was initially restored, a subsequent failure at the Los Guinchos power plant triggered the island-wide outage. The cause of the disconnection remained unclear. The island's port, airport, General Hospital and Hospital de Dolores continued operating on backup power. The regional government issued its highest rainfall alert for eastern La Palma at 2 am.

Emergency officials said the area recorded 62 millimeters (2.4 inches) of rain in one hour and 138 millimeters (5.4 inches) over 12 hours. Firefighters also responded to a storm-related house fire, while landslides were reported, though they were less severe than anticipated, according to Spanish broadcaster Cadena SER. An orange alert for heavy rainfall remained in effect until Tuesday morning. The Canary Islands were unaffected by the April 2025 blackout that left mainland Spain and Portugal without electricity for around 10 hours.

A European expert panel concluded in March that the earlier outage resulted from multiple factors, including failures in voltage control that caused generators to disconnect in succession.