Electricity was back in most of the two countries almost 18 hours after a blackout that shut down much of daily life. The cause of the outage remained unclear.

Spain and Portugal held emergency Cabinet meetings as evacuations from some public spaces took place. Spain's Interior Ministry has declared a state of emergency for affected regions that need it. Follow DW.

LONDON - The hunt has begun for the cause of a massive blackout across Spain, Portugal and parts of France that halted trains, bank machines and traffic lights, in one of Europe's biggest ever power system collapses.