Spain experienced a nationwide telecommunications outage early Tuesday, causing significant disruption to emergency services across various regions. This incident, occurring just weeks after a major power blackout affected millions, saw callers unable to access the national emergency number, 112, for several hours.
Telefónica, one of the country's dominant telecommunications companies, reported that the blackout stemmed from a planned network upgrade. The worst impacts were felt by landline and internet users, leading to emergency response teams in areas like Valencia, Aragón, and the Basque Country resorting to social media to share alternative phone numbers for urgent calls.
Local authorities in both Catalonia and Extremadura confirmed their emergency services were affected, but reassured the public that contingency measures were in place. Meanwhile, Andalusia’s government acknowledged the nationwide disruption and reported that efforts were underway to restore the emergency lines.
By late morning, officials, including Spain's Minister for Digital Transformation, Óscar López, announced that service had been restored. López commended Telefónica’s swift response, stating, “We’ve been in contact with Telefónica from the very beginning...all the incidents have now been resolved.”
Telefónica, which serves over 41 million users in Spain and handles most of the country’s landline communications, faced criticism for the outage. Reports from Downdetector also showed spikes in connectivity problems among other major providers like Movistar, O2, and Orange.
This telecommunications disruption follows a significant 18-hour power outage last month that left many stranded as air travel and train services ground to a halt. The cause of that blackout is still under investigation, with the public expressing dissatisfaction regarding how such infrastructure failures were managed by authorities, resulting in substantial financial losses.
