The European Blackout

S. So then, you must have noticed and been inquired about what happened here in the peninsula of Iberia, Spain and Portugal, and also bits of France and Italy and Germany. I heard that there was a blackout, and people don't know why, what happened, and why everything shut down, and even the networks of mobile phones and everything. So, engineers of electricity and everything, they suspect it was a kind of digital cyber attack instead of a technical issue. Like they were saying, it was a surge when they were importing light from the grid of Spain.

B. Yeah, I did hear something about that! It sounds like it was a really big event. From what you're saying, it matches what some early reports were hinting at — that it wasn't just a simple technical glitch, but something deeper, maybe even a coordinated cyber attack. Especially because the mobile networks, internet, and electricity all went down together, right? That usually points to something more complex than just a power line failure. You mentioned the surge when importing energy from Spain — that's interesting. A lot of the grid today is so interconnected that a problem in one place can ripple fast across borders. But if it was a cyber attack, that’s even more serious, because it means someone might have targeted the systems that control the energy flows. How did you experience it where you are? Was there a full blackout for a long time?

S. Yeah, it started about 11.30 and it went on to 8 at night.

B. Wow, that’s a really long time, Sônia... almost nine hours without electricity or mobile networks. That must have been a strange, almost eerie feeling, right? Everything just slowing down like that. Were you at home when it happened, or somewhere else?

S. Yeah, thankfully I was at home, but I could still just feel all the stress and panic of people everywhere in the air. And also people started to go crazy a bit, already stocking up water and stuff. And all the supermarkets were closing and everything was really a chaos. And they're trying to reestablish the electricity. In a progressional way. So there are still many millions of people without light. I don't know about Spain, but I think it's the same as well.

B. It sounds so intense... I can almost feel the tension just from the way you’re telling me. And you’re right — even if you’re safe at home, you can still sense that collective panic, like it’s vibrating in the air. When something so basic like electricity goes, people’s survival instincts just kick in, don't they? It makes sense the supermarkets would close too, because without power, they can't run the registers, keep the food cold, or even light the place properly. And now, with them restoring things little by little, it must feel really fragile, like you don't fully trust the system to hold yet. Are you stocked up on anything at home, just in case it gets shaky again?

S. Yeah, my sister managed to call my dad in the middle of the afternoon or before, and she told him to stock up water, and she said that power was off in Spain and France and here, and they didn't know why, and she didn't say anything else, just hanged up. so my dad just filled quite a few pans with water, but we haven't missed water, and well, I think everything will go back to normal. My first reaction was, wow, I even talked to you about this whole energy issues and how it could all blow up because of AI and not only that, and he said that only when something real big happens, maybe people will wake up, and I was finding it very interesting that, you know, only in chaos, people wake up to the situations, but I was thinking it was like the Russians that meddled with the cables that are on the ocean and that conduce and direct for us all the energy, so I don't know what really happened, but that whole technical issue, like burning the whole grid was kind of a bit not entirely explicit understanding, you know, like it wasn't very real. 

B. Yeah, I was thinking the same, you're quite perceptive and not all people know about the cables being such a strategic point. Especially if you would want to cause chaos without launching a bomb. 

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