La Palma loses power island-wide as heavy rain brings maximum alerts in the Canaries

Island-wide outage

A general failure of the electricity system hit La Palma on Monday, 2 November, and left the island without power. The Canary Islands government put the failure at 06:42 and said electricity had been lost completely. Endesa gave an earlier start of 06:38 and reported 50,508 customers without supply, adding that restoration work had begun. Several units at the Los Guinchos power station had been coupled to the grid, and grid operator Red Eléctrica (REE) was waiting for that plant to reconnect to the system. Endesa's later update showed 8,117 customers back on supply and 42,391 still waiting.

Restored8,117

Still without power42,391

Restored

8117 customers

Still without power

42391 customers

Data from the article text

Transmission failure and history

Endesa had not yet established the origin of the incident, though it pointed to electrical storms linked to a heavy rain episode. The Guinchos-Valle line, described as the island's only transmission line and owned by REE, was out after an early-morning incident before the blackout. A high-voltage line that REE was repairing had been out of service since 04:10, Endesa said, and that repair was close to completion. REE said the restoration process had begun and would bring service back as quickly as possible. The previous general blackout on La Palma took place on 10 June 2025, and two more blackouts hit the island within less than a week in May that year.

Rain alerts

The Canary government raised the rain warning on the eastern side of La Palma to maximum alert from 02:00 on Monday, acting on information from AEMET, the state meteorological agency. Accumulations there reached 62 litres per square metre in one hour and 138 litres in 12 hours. During the night into Monday, homes, premises and overflowing sewers in Breña Baja and Breña Alta needed water pumped out. Later on Monday, the regional government lowered the eastern side to alert, while the rest of La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera stayed on alert. Tenerife and Gran Canaria remained at pre-alert, and Gran Canaria's north could see up to 15 litres per square metre an hour around midday. The emergency directorate warned of high uncertainty over where, how intensely and how long the rain would fall.

Government and regional response

Spain's Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, posted on the social network X that he was following the situation.

“Monitoring the evolution of the storms in the Canaries and the energy blackout taking place right now in La Palma.”

Torres added that the central government was in contact with the authorities and with the Canary government. Canary Islands president Fernando Clavijo said he was following the situation closely and reported no personal injuries on La Palma so far, though rainwater had caused incidents. He urged residents to take precautions, avoid unnecessary travel, stay out of flooded areas and use vehicles less, and to follow instructions from the 112 Canarias emergency coordination centre. The regional emergency directorate declared the PLATECA alert across the whole island, a status meant to track the incident, coordinate the bodies involved and assess effects on essential services.