Star Metro - No power, no phone, no transport -- Spain in a panic

Carlos Condori, one of millions of affected in Spain and Portugal, was on the Madrid metro when the blackout brought his journey to a shuddering halt.

"The light went out and the carriage stopped," but the train managed to crawl to the platform, the 19-year-old construction worker told AFP outside a metro station in central Madrid.

"People were stunned, because this had never happened in Spain," he added. "There's no coverage, I can't call my family, my parents, nothing: I can't even go to work."

At Cibeles Square, one of Madrid's busiest intersections, a cacophony of sirens, whistles and car horns erupted when the traffic lights went out. Police did their best to keep cars and buses moving.

Bewildered office workers congregated in streets with their computers made useless without internet, alongside residents, were thankful they had not been trapped in lifts.

A disorientated Marina Sierra tried to contact her dad and improvise a route home to the Madrid suburbs after her school was shut.

"The building we were in was giving off smoke, they had to evacuate us quickly.... I'm shocked because everything is totally out of control," the 16-year-old said.

Meanwhile without metros and trains, queues snaked along city streets for alternate bus routes.

"I don't know how much longer I still have until I'm home," said Rosario Pena, 39, a fast food worker, as buses crammed with passengers passed without stopping.

Tens of thousands took to walking him from offices in central Madrid. Restaurants, conscious of their food being at risk without cold storage, offered promotions to the weary and stranded.

"Oysters and a glass of wine: 5 euros, cash payment," read a cardboard sign at one street corner, while an ice cream shop, Dolce Fina, simply began handing out free tubs -- and a long queue soon formed outside.

- 'Not the end of the world' -

Transport chaos also gripped Spain's second city Barcelona, where residents and tourists alike flooded the streets in a desperate attempt to find out what had happened.

Student Laia Montserrat, who lives one hour outside Barcelona, was in the middle of a presentation when the blackout struck her school and left her in a predicament.

"As the internet wasn't coming back, they told us to go home... (but) there weren't trains either," Laia told AFP. "Now we don't know what to do."

Leonor Abecasis, who was visiting the tourist hotspot from Portugal, was in a shop when she was plunged into darkness.

"We're waiting for the electricity to come back," said the 27-year-old consultant. She admitted she was "a little" worried for her return flight to Lisbon later in the day.

Back in Madrid, a philosophical Pilar Lopez tried to put into perspective the confusion and panic of her colleagues who were fretting about the perishable food they had left in their freezers.

"We've suffered a pandemic, I don't think this is worse," said the 53-year-old, a higher education administrator.

"It's like anything, you get used to it and start to think that this isn't the end of the world."

Lopez said the widespread bedlam provided a useful lesson: "Maybe we should go back to the beginnings and not depend so much on electricity in some things."

"I can't even pay because my mobile isn't working. Sometimes you have to be a bit more analogue: this proves it," she added.

O.Poirier--SMC