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A rare mass power outage caused chaos and disruptions in Spain and Portugal on Monday.
Madrid local Claudia Garcia says there was widespread confusion.
"Well, the power has gone out. We went out to see if something had happened on the street and no. What we saw was that everyone was saying the same thing: 'No power, no power'. A man passed by in a van and said it was all over Spain, Portugal and also Belgium was without electricity. We don't know to what extent because I was listening to it on the radio."
The outage across the Iberian peninsula began around 12.30 pm local time, grounding planes, halting traffic and and forcing some hospitals to suspend routine operations.
At Atocha, one of Madrid's main railway stations, passengers stood waiting on platforms, with trains at a standstill.
Mari Carmen is a train station worker and was left stranded by the blackout. She says she needs to get home.
“Very worried, because I am trying to get home. I don't know how, I have my two children at home alone. So it's terrible, I'm trying to get my husband to come in here so I can get home, but I haven't been able to get home, work or do anything. So that's what it is.”
Others were left trapped. Around 35,000 people in Spain were caught on more than 100 trains.
Many were stuck in lifts for hours and pleas came over messaging services from those waiting to be rescued.
The blackout left ATM screens blank and many distressed by a loss of wifi and phone connection.
Panicked by the confusion, many people in Madrid flocked to supermarkets to stock up on essential supplies such as water, eggs and milk.
Two international students in Madrid say they didn't know how much they they needed power to move around the city.
"I don’t know, it’s probably, we’re scared, it shows how dependent we are on it."
"We were actually most afraid of walking back home without the streetlights."
"And also the traffic lights."
In Portugal, many supermarkets in Lisbon and the resort town of Vilamoura in southern Portugal had shut.
Thousands of passengers were also left stranded in the capital's airport.
Estefania Caquiagia, who was visiting Portugal from Angola and due to fly home, says there was a tense atmosphere as tourists sat outside the terminal and waited for news about their flights.
“As you can see this is a flood of people, so boring. Nobody in, nobody out. Boring, thirsty, hungry -- we can’t do anything and here we are completely lost."
Spain's Interior Ministry declared a national emergency and governments from the two countries convened emergency cabinet meetings as officials tried to find out what caused the mass blackout.
According to Spain's Energy Ministry, the country's network lost 15 gigawatts of electricity generation in five seconds when the outage happened -- a loss of power supply that European systems are not designed to handle.
The drop caused Spain and France's grids to disconnect, leading to the collapse of the Spanish electricity network.
However, the reason for the power loss is still unclear.
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says investigations are continuing into the cause of the outage and no possibilities have been ruled out yet.
"It is better not to speculate. We will know the causes later. We are not ruling out any hypotheses. But for now we must focus on the most important thing, which is restoring electricity to our homes."
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro says it's likely the blackout in Portugal was caused by the power collapse in Spain.
Rumours circulated of possible sabotage, however Mr Montenegro says there was no evidence for this theory.
The Portugese National Cybersecurity Center said in a statement there was no sign the outage was due to a cyber attack.
Widespread power outages are rare in Europe.
In 2003, a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a major outage across the whole Italian peninsula for around 12 hours.
In 2006, an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of Europe and as far as Morocco.
About 43 per cent of Spain's energy comes from wind and solar power, with nuclear accounting for a further 20 per cent and fossil fuels 23 per cent, according to energy think tank Ember.
By late Monday, nearly 50 per cent of Spain's electricity supply was restored and Portugal said it was likely that power would be fully restored to the country within hours.
In Madrid, crowds cheered as the lights came back on in parts of the city.
However, Spain's Prime Minister says non-essential workers should aim to stay home on Tuesday as the country works to get back online.
