A partial outage in Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica’s fixed telephone and internet networks downed some emergency service numbers for hours on Tuesday, May 20th, the latest incident affecting critical infrastructure in the country.
Emergency services in several regions published messages on social media at around 9:00 am saying the key 112 number was not working.
Telefonica said “upgrade works on the network” had caused the incident that “affected the fixed communications services of some companies and public services,” which were “restored completely” by 12:30 pm.
The disruption comes three weeks after a huge blackout plunged all of Spain and Portugal into chaos. The causes of the power cut still remain unclear but the blackout raised alarms about the vulnerability of Spain’s electricity system which relies heavily on renewable energy.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has refused to take responsibility.
