Entire Tenerife island hit by blackout

Tenerife, part of Spain's Canary Islands, was hit by a major blackout on Sunday, leaving nearly 1 million people without power.

The entire Atlantic island was affected by the power outage for several hours.

Emergency generators kept vital services such as hospitals operational, until workers were able to restore about 65% of the island's power.

Emergency services responded to more than 700 incidents during the outage, mostly people trapped in elevators, alarms that were triggered and doors that had to be forced open.

Trams stopped, traffic lights off

Patricia Hernandez, the mayor of Tenerife's capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, told Cadena SER that authorities were investigating the cause of the outage.

The power cut also halted the island's tram system and traffic lights. Both airports on the island reported no interruption to services.

The island, off the northwestern coast of Africa, is a major tourist destination that has already been affected by the collapse of British travel firm Thomas Cook ahead of its winter season. A reported 25% of the region's tourists came from the tour operator.

aw/cmk (AP, dpa, Reuters)

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