A Spaniard has shared what people really did when the power went out.

Spain and Portugal were hit with a major blackout on Monday, April 28 with widespread disruption across both countries. Residents were left without electricity and mobile phone signal and flights and train services were suspended.

However, Alex Socoloff, founder of Produx Design, a digital agency in Barcelona, Spain, took to social media platform X to show what people really did during the chaos. It was perhaps not what was expected.

In his tweet he wrote: Massive power blackout in Spain and Portugal! No internet, payment are off and flights are cancelled. "Media: Chaos! People are in Panic! What really happened: We just took blankets, beer and had a great time all together.”

He included a photo of lots of people in various groups or on their own sitting on the grass in a park looking relaxed.

Spain’s national grid operator, Red Eléctrica de España has said that as of 6am, 99.16 per cent of mainland power demand has been restored. Portugal’s grid operator REN announced on X that all substations in the country’s grid were restored by 11:30pm last night and that the event was of ‘external origin’.

Yesterday, thousands of passengers on the metro in Barcelona were evacuated after the blackout, according to Spanish news site El Mundo. In Valencia, the metro announced that it had suspended service across the entire network and parts of Madrid underground were evacuated and traffic lights in the city stopped working, as per local media.

Air travel was also affected as power was cut off at Madrid’s Barajas international airport and thousands of passengers were stranded at Valencia airport. Arrivals and departures have been delayed at both airports.

Backup generators were activated across Spain’s airports, according to Aena, the public body that owns and operates the majority of airports in Spain, the Express previously reported. Bars were unable to take card payments and cash machines were also down.

Alex’s tweet showing what some people in Spain during the blackout has garnered 391,900 views, 4,900 likes and nearly 200 comments, at the time of writing. One X user said: “Can we have one in America next? Kinda sounds nice.”

Another added: “We haven’t had a carefree day like this since the times of Covid.” A third proposed: “Maybe this should happen every month for [a] weekend everywhere?”

Others chimed in with “this is cute tho (though)”, “very European of you”, and “perfect!” But not everyone saw the light hearted side as someone else remarked: “Spaniards - yes. But tourists - no.

“Also not thousands of people who were stranded somewhere and had to go pick up their kids or relatives or just do something important.”

Another user questioned: “Really? What about all the refrigerated food all over every household and store? Just to name one big issue with the situation.”