Photo: Blackout adds Madrid in loss and makes it a city without traffic lights

The feeling is known for many in Madrid. You lose the subway in your nose and invades you the frustration of those who lose a flight, even if the next has arrived in just four minutes. Only when the light sign only gave other two minutes of waiting, the melted to black.

Suddenly, The platform remained in the dark. After a few minutes, no trace of the train or light at the end of the tunnel. When it seemed evident that it was not something as passenger as I imagined, I got on the surface and I started listening to the murmur of other users who spoke with the metro staff. It was not something localized; There was a cut outside, or at least in the nearest environment.

They were little more than 12:30 at noon of This Monday of absolute zero And, with the haste to look for an alternative to reach punctual at the beginning of my work shift, I asked for an VTC thanks to the latest coverage crumbs that I could have achieved during the day, without even imagining the scope of what happened. The driver had to cross the same thing, because when he collected me, he told me, surprised, that he had to spend a couple of crosses without light.

We continue to advance and, what started in our head as a very localized cut, was soon found as something much more serious and enormous. A city without traffic lightsSin Electric supplyNeither phones nor other communications, and in which drivers, passengers and pedestrians were becoming aware of what happened while they came across the most immediate environment, but without connection with the world.

People left coffee and offices and filled the sidewalks, while in the streets and Big roads From Madrid the cars, in normal circumstances of a more accelerated impulse, seemed to save their composure led by caution and civilization, while gradually they were incorporated into some complicated intersections of the regulatory agents of the regulation regulation regulation regulation regulation traffic.

After a while, both the passers -by and the first reserve who had already finished their working day, and others who had to fall the end of their duties, shared a concern. “Let’s see how we go home“Said the workers who left the courts of Plaza de Castilla.” We don’t have a sign, We don’t know what’s going on“They underlined disconcerted.

They weren’t alone. THE rivers of people that populated him Paseo de la Castellana near the Santiago Bernabéu They advance downwards with an almost contradictory mixture of determination and confusion. “I had never seen many people walking on the street,” said a man, who should not compare the situation with less improvised events such as events or celebrations.

Transportation complications

Clara was surprised by the Blackout In the middle of the metro machineabout to stop at the nearest station. But in these cases he has not waited for the protocol, which implies waiting to be guided by the safety personnel towards the emergency exits located in the tunnels. With the platform practically at hand and moved by the fear that it would have been an attack or a dangerous and clear accident that moved to go to a work meeting, has decided to force the mechanical opening of the door from the inside and came out quickly accompanied by some travelers, as explained to “Euronews”.

Well, eating time, many VTCs were still seen on the street and taxi drivers circulated, with the queues on the bus stops. On many buses there were almost no pivot and others had directly hung a sign of “does not admit travelers“Nuria, Olga and Rosa are three workers in the cleaning sector who had decided (at least initially) not entrusted to public transport and walked determined to reach Móstoles, on the southern suburbs of Madrid. They had started their route in the northern part of the city (a trip of about 30 kilometers).

In the areas we travel from the center of the Spanish capital There was no mention of anything else During the day, but a sense of fear did not breathe, but rather a mixture of amazement, vulnerability and, saving a little horn and other tensions behind the wheel, he felt the expectation, like the one he sees his routine altered by something that, at first glance, did not seem a direct threat to life but did not open a door to the intrigue that was experienced collectively.

The government investigates the causes and asks to avoid moving

Among the difficulties in accessing official information due to the lack of signal and electricity, Speculation They monopolized the conversations of citizens in different tones. Some were very serious, even if there were also those who joked with the “apocalypse” and a young American described another, carefree, a sensation “close to the end of the world”. But the word most in everyone’s mouth on the street, while the voice of the scope of what happened was in the running, is that of “hacko” or “IT attack”.

The president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, noted that “the causes are still studied” and has indicated that “it is better not to speculate”, although the hypotheses are not excluded. The chief of the executive also asked citizens to avoid the displaced people.

Radio, Blackout -of

In a fast food, which remained open with limits in their offer while others close, the greatest concern was the food conservation And the huge order that had just entered that morning.

After a while, in a road in the Ibiza district, about 15 people turned around a car parked with the radio at a complete volume. An immune vehicle for total blackout, which was also largely instructive -to whom citizens were able to follow the news live before the collapse of communications. Not everyone has access to a vehicle or sufficient analogy to keep a transistor, but the mouth mouth is also shown powerful and, also at the risk of misunderstandings, connects people at the bottom of the road. Even so, the information was scarce and the confusion reigned.

A few meters away, at the door of a local supermarket, people rose to enter, because they could only buy spaced shifts. Near there, in the park of WithdrawThere were also many who managed the unexpected digital disconnection by spending a first section of the afternoon relaxed on the grass, on a sunny day when we were dark.

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Already around 18:00, in the admission area of Emergency From the Gregorio Marañón hospital, which was working with a generator, the atmosphere seemed calm, although our visit coincided with the moment when a woman asked to be treated for slight injuries, after the taxi in which she was traveling abruptly she stopped.

In the Alcalá Puerta In the afternoon, dense traffic was no longer seen shortly before in other critical crossings such as José Abascal with Castilian. And here he is there, seeing the time, while the day gave way to the night and the supply was gradually resuming after the Major Blackout in recent history From Space.