A Bermudian caught in the midst of a massive power outage in Spain said the public were left in the dark as power restoration efforts ramped up.

Vanessa Thomas, who was caught up in the outage while trying to travel with her family from Spain to Britain, said: “The panic is similar to the first few days of the pandemic.

“There is no information being provided at all. We are all being kept updated by word of mouth and social media. There are reports it could take up to seven days to resolve the issue.”

The power outage struck large portions of Spain and Portugal yesterday afternoon, bringing stores, classrooms and transport to a standstill.

The outage was particularly felt by commuters, with train service halted throughout the region and the lack of traffic lights causing long lines of traffic on the roads.

Pedro Sánchez, the Prime Minister of Spain, said a “strong oscillation” in the European grid was behind the outage, but the cause was still under investigation.

Spain declared a state of emergency and the nation’s interior ministry deployed 30,000 officers to maintain public order and prevent security incidents, particularly on roads where traffic signals were not working.

Red Eléctrica, a Spanish power supplier, estimated yesterday afternoon that it would take between six and ten hours to restore service, describing the outage as “exceptional and totally extraordinary”.

Ms Thomas said she was scheduled to fly to London with her daughters, Nicola and Annika, when they found themselves caught up by the outage.

“We started our day at a local regional airport in Spain — Badajoz — and were denied boarding due to overbooking on the flight,” she said. “We then made the decision to travel to Seville to take the flight to London.

“We got to Seville at about 1.30pm, and at this point we didn’t know about the power outage. No traffic lights were working in the city and the amount of traffic was piling up.

“Local police had started to be deployed to help control the traffic situation, as there was chaos on the road.

“It was only once we arrived to the airport we learnt of the outages. Taxi lines at the airport were up to four hours long. Luckily, the airport has a back-up generator, and therefore was working.”

Ms Thomas said she had heard stories of other passengers left waiting three hours to get a taxi to the airport, while others elected to walk.

“The flight we are on is delayed four hours, with no update when it will take off,” she added.

“There is a lot of confusion everywhere, with the cause not known.

“My husband is in Lagos, Portugal, and he has told me supermarkets are bare, police are controlling petrol stations and overall people are panicking.”