Latest news with #FernandoClavijo
Metro
10-06-2025
- General
- Metro
Canary Islands hit by fourth power cut in only weeks
A power outage has hit the Canary Islands, affecting more than 50,000 people and disrupting traffic lights and shops. The island of La Palma went dark at 5.32pm after a 'generation turbine tripped' at the Los Guinchos power plant in Breña Alta. Around 90% of the island was without power for two hours, Canarias7 reported. As of 8.12pm, more than 50% of power has been restored, the island's Security and Emergency Department said on X. El Comité Asesor del PLATECA reunido bajo la dirección del consejero @territoriocan_ Manuel Miranda, realiza seguimiento de la situación➡️Las empresas suministradoras informan que el servicio se ha restablecido en más del 50% y continúan trabajando para su reposición total — 112 Canarias (@112canarias) June 10, 2025 Canary Islands President, Fernando Clavijo, added on the platform that officials are working to 'restore power as quickly as possible'. The Canary Islands Emergency Plan (PLATECA) was activated at 6pm local time, declaring the blackout an 'emergency situation'. Coming only months after Spain's nationwide blackout, La Palma president Sergio Rodríguez said the island is not in the 'first world'. He added: 'We have a completely obsolete power plant that's been around for more than 50 years.' 'La Palma is an island that wants to develop; it must aim to restructure its entire energy system, starting with the systems we currently have.' A notice on an outage map by Endea, Spain's largest utility company, says 'improvement works on the electrical grid' are impacting supply. La Palma's power has been knocked out four times since May 8, when a failure in a substation at the same Los Guinchos power plant left 19,526 customers without power for nearly two hours. The island heavily relies on planet-warming fossil fuels as it is not connected to the mainland, meaning failures at power plants can ripple across the island's fragile power grid, Spanish tech hub Xataka said. Spain suffered a daylong power outage in April, upending the lives of millions of people. Hospitals were forced to run on generators, trains stopped running and many schools closed. Panic buying quickly spread, with shopkeepers having to keep track of cash-only transactions using pen and paper. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Spanish police cause uproar over photo of older women enjoying alfresco chat MORE: Sunbed Wars 2025 arrives in Benidorm after holidaymakers 'stampede' for best loungers MORE: Your favourite places to eat in Europe that aren't the usual tourist traps
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Massive power cut hits British holiday hotspot with 'entire Spanish island left without electricity'
A huge power outage has plunged a British holiday hotspot into complete darkness. The blackout began at around 5:30pm in La Palma following a generator failure, according to the electricity company Endesa, which reported an error in the generator at the Los Guinchos plant, in Breña Alta. Endesa claims it does not expect power to be fully restored in the short-term, leading the Canary Islands emergency 112 service to activate the Canary Islands Emergency Plan (PLATECA) in a state of 'alert'. 'The Canary Islands regional government has activated the Canary Islands emergency plan in response to the 'zero power' alert on La Palma,' the emergency services announced. The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, also took to social media to confirm he is following the situation. 'In coordination with the administrations of La Palma within the framework of the Canary Islands Emergency Plan that we activated this very afternoon following the registration of the energy blackout on the island and continuing the efforts to restore energy in the shortest possible time,' he wrote on X. According to local reports, firefighters are currently assisting people who are trapped in elevators, and there is no power coverage in several areas across La Palma. An estimated 50,289 users across the island have also been affected by the massive blackout. Following the sudden outage, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres - who stated that he was informed of the energy blackout after the meeting of the Territorial Council of Democratic Memory held in Zaragoza - indicated that the Government of Spain is aware of the evolution of the situation. 'Hoping that the energy is restored as soon as possible, I send all my support to the people of La Palma,' the minister said on X. La Palma's president Sergio Rodriguez also reacted to the failure by describing La Palma as an island 'which is not in the first world' and demanding measures from Madrid and the region's government. He said: 'The power station we've got is obsolete and slows down our development.' Reports around 8.30pm said electricity had been re-established to around 30 per cent of the customers affected by this afternoon's outage. La Palma is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, particularly diesel, for its electricity generation due to its isolated location and lack of interconnection with the mainland or other islands. It comes after a series of blackouts have hit the island in recent months. Santa Cruze de Palma, Los Llanos de Aridane and El Paso have all experienced recent, unrelated, power outages. The latest of these, on May 8, left the power out for hours and affected several of the eight municipalities in La Palma. Spain's Energy Minister Sara Aagesen today urged private electricity companies to speed up sharing information needed to identify the causes of the worst ever blackout to hit Spain and Portugal. More than a month after one of Europe's biggest electricity system collapses left around 60million people in the two countries without power, the cause has yet to be determined and the blame game has intensified. 'At the beginning, when we requested information, it arrived very quickly,' Aagesen told reporters from Nice, France, where she was attending a UN conference. 'Now we're in a situation where information arrives in dribs and drabs, much more slowly.' She acknowledged though that the information required was now more detailed and, at times, more complex. 'But I insist, I continue to call for this information to be delivered as soon as possible so we can identify the causes and implement the necessary measures,' she said. Spain's energy ministry is leading one of the probes looking into the April 28 events, which sent investigators from the country's cybersecurity and intelligence services to private energy companies' premises to gather information.
North Wales Chronicle
29-05-2025
- General
- North Wales Chronicle
Women and girls die in Canary Islands port after migrant boat capsizes
Four women and three girls drowned in the chaotic scene in El Hierro's port while survivors clung to ropes and life preservers tossed to them by rescuers. Spain's maritime rescue service, which located the boat some six miles from shore, said the boat keeled over as rescuers started removing children on to a rescue craft that was positioned between the migrant boat and the quay. The movement of people on the boat caused it to tip and then turn over, throwing the occupants into the water. Emergency services for the Canary Islands said four women, a teenage girl and two younger girls died in the accident. One of the girls was found by a rescue diver. 'The drama witnessed on El Hierro should move us all, (those) lives were lost in an attempt to find a better future,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter. A helicopter evacuated two more children, a girl and a boy, to a local hospital in a serious condition after they nearly drowned, the service added. Local media reports said the small boat appeared to be packed with over 100 people. Spanish rescuers and members of the Red Cross pulled people out of the water. Fernando Clavijo, regional president for the Canary Islands, said that there were people trapped inside a part of the boat who 'wouldn't get out'. The Spanish archipelago located off Africa's western coast has for years been a main route for migrants who risk their lives in dinghies and rubber boats unfit for long journeys in the open sea. Thousands have been known to die on the way to European territory. Nearly 47,000 people who made the crossing last year reached the archipelago, surpassing previous records for a second time. Most were citizens of Mali, Senegal and Morocco, with many boarding boats to Spain from the coast of Mauritania. The arrivals include thousands of unaccompanied children. Some 10,800 people had arrived via the Atlantic to the Canary Islands by mid-May, which was down by 34% compared to the same period in 2024.
Powys County Times
28-05-2025
- General
- Powys County Times
Women and girls die in Canary Islands port after migrant boat capsizes
Tragedy struck a boatload of migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa at the very end of their journey when their boat capsized within reach of the shore of the Canary Islands. Four women and three girls drowned in the chaotic scene in El Hierro's port while survivors clung to ropes and life preservers tossed to them by rescuers. Spain's maritime rescue service, which located the boat some six miles from shore, said the boat keeled over as rescuers started removing children on to a rescue craft that was positioned between the migrant boat and the quay. The movement of people on the boat caused it to tip and then turn over, throwing the occupants into the water. Emergency services for the Canary Islands said four women, a teenage girl and two younger girls died in the accident. One of the girls was found by a rescue diver. 'The drama witnessed on El Hierro should move us all, (those) lives were lost in an attempt to find a better future,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter. A helicopter evacuated two more children, a girl and a boy, to a local hospital in a serious condition after they nearly drowned, the service added. Local media reports said the small boat appeared to be packed with over 100 people. Spanish rescuers and members of the Red Cross pulled people out of the water. Fernando Clavijo, regional president for the Canary Islands, said that there were people trapped inside a part of the boat who 'wouldn't get out'. The Spanish archipelago located off Africa's western coast has for years been a main route for migrants who risk their lives in dinghies and rubber boats unfit for long journeys in the open sea. Thousands have been known to die on the way to European territory. Nearly 47,000 people who made the crossing last year reached the archipelago, surpassing previous records for a second time. Most were citizens of Mali, Senegal and Morocco, with many boarding boats to Spain from the coast of Mauritania. The arrivals include thousands of unaccompanied children.
South Wales Guardian
28-05-2025
- General
- South Wales Guardian
Women and girls die in Canary Islands port after migrant boat capsizes
Four women and three girls drowned in the chaotic scene in El Hierro's port while survivors clung to ropes and life preservers tossed to them by rescuers. Spain's maritime rescue service, which located the boat some six miles from shore, said the boat keeled over as rescuers started removing children on to a rescue craft that was positioned between the migrant boat and the quay. The movement of people on the boat caused it to tip and then turn over, throwing the occupants into the water. Emergency services for the Canary Islands said four women, a teenage girl and two younger girls died in the accident. One of the girls was found by a rescue diver. 'The drama witnessed on El Hierro should move us all, (those) lives were lost in an attempt to find a better future,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter. A helicopter evacuated two more children, a girl and a boy, to a local hospital in a serious condition after they nearly drowned, the service added. Local media reports said the small boat appeared to be packed with over 100 people. Spanish rescuers and members of the Red Cross pulled people out of the water. Fernando Clavijo, regional president for the Canary Islands, said that there were people trapped inside a part of the boat who 'wouldn't get out'. The Spanish archipelago located off Africa's western coast has for years been a main route for migrants who risk their lives in dinghies and rubber boats unfit for long journeys in the open sea. Thousands have been known to die on the way to European territory. Nearly 47,000 people who made the crossing last year reached the archipelago, surpassing previous records for a second time. Most were citizens of Mali, Senegal and Morocco, with many boarding boats to Spain from the coast of Mauritania. The arrivals include thousands of unaccompanied children. Some 10,800 people had arrived via the Atlantic to the Canary Islands by mid-May, which was down by 34% compared to the same period in 2024.
