The April 28th outage, described as Europe's severest in 20 years, halted transport, cut internet and telephone communications and plunged cities into darkness across mainland Spain and Portugal. A report by a European expert panel last week concluded that "cascading overvoltages" caused the blackout, with the findings in line with a Spanish government report in June that also blamed overvoltage. Overvoltage occurs when there is too much electrical voltage in a network, overloading equipment.
Granada is usually peaceful and sleepy, but people seemed on edge. Many felt unnerved, fearing that the blackout wasn't just an inconvenience but the beginning of something larger.