Huge blackout hits Brit holiday hotspot leaving tens of thousands without power after ‘turbine failed’
A MASSIVE power outage has left a British holiday hotspot completely dark.
Outages began around 5:30pm and were first detected in homes and offices on the island of La Palma.
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The isle was left completely dark by the massive outage with tens of thousands of residents left without power.
It is thought the outage was caused by the tripping of a generating turbine at Los Guinchos power station.
An estimated 50,289 users across the island have been affected by the huge blackout.
The Canary Islands government has activated an emergency Civil Protection plan although there are no reports so far of any casualties as a result of the new power failure.
Previous outages have hit the island’s major cities with the biggest, Los Llanos de Aridane, left dark in recent months.
Desperate restoration efforts are underway on the island with authorities scrambling to fix the issue.
Authorities have instructed residents to stay calm as they work to restore power to the island.
It comes after a series of blackouts hit the island in recent months.
Santa Cruze de Palma, Los Llanos de Aridane and El Paso have all experienced recent power outages.
The latest of these, on May 8, left the power out for hours and affected several of the eight municipalities in La Palma.
Today’s outage has been the worst of the recent blackouts with power out across the whole island and tens of thousands of users affected.
The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres said: “I send all my support to the people of La Palma.”
He went on to promise that power would be restored as soon as possible.
Reports around 8.30pm said electricity had been re-established to around 30 per cent of the customers affected by this afternoon’s outage.
La Palma is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, particularly diesel, for its electricity generation due to its isolated location and lack of interconnection with the mainland or other islands.
In late April British holiday hotspots Spain and Portugal both suffered serious power outages.
The countries were both hit with with huge outages that shut down airports and left hundreds trapped.
“Rare atmospheric phenomena” was blamed for the outages in Spain that left tens of thousands in the dark.
Roads in Spain and Portugal were left blocked up with traffic as lights and signals went blank, emergency officers were drafted in to tackle the bedlam.
Blackouts left residents stuck on trains and hundreds of rescue operations were launched to save trapped residents.
La Palma avoided these blackouts but has suffered several of its own since.
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