A nationwide telecommunications outage disrupted phone and internet services across Spain early Tuesday, just four weeks after a similar nationwide blackout.
Major networks, including Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, Digimobil and O2, went down around 5 a.m., according to Downdetector.
The outage affected most of mainland Spain, with widespread reports from major cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Malaga, Murcia and Bilbao, according to the British daily, Metro.
Users reported complete signal loss, blackouts, and internet failures. Several emergency 112 lines also went down, forcing regional authorities to issue alternative contact numbers for law enforcement and emergency services.
Spanish broadcaster RTVC shared backup numbers for local police, national police, and the Guardia Civil.
The outage also impacted the Basque Country, Aragon, and the Valencian Community. While the Balearic Islands were spared, some connectivity issues were reported in the Canary Islands.
Telefonica, Spain’s leading telecommunications company, confirmed that engineers are working to restore service. Emergency lines in Aragon have since been restored, but disruptions remain in other regions.
According to El Correo, the incident may be linked to a network upgrade, although officials have not confirmed the cause.
The outage follows a similar incident last month that triggered widespread panic buying across Spain and Portugal. That event affected an estimated 50 million people, cutting off power, halting metro and train services, disabling traffic lights, and rendering ATMs useless.
Telefonica said it had reestablished all services in Spain by Tuesday afternoon. It added that the disruption was caused by a network update.
"All service has been reestablished except for a case or two where teams are working," Telefonica's Operations Director Sergio Sanchez said in a video posted online.
