A major power outage on Friday struck the Czech Republic, including the capital Prague, which disrupted public transportation and hospitals.
Also affected were regions of Ústi, Liberec and Hradec Králove, Euro News reported, citing CEPS power grid operator and domestic media.
Czech Republic has a population of 10 million and borders Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Poland, which didn’t report outages. Weather was nice Friday with highs in the mid-70s, contrasting with highs in the mid-80s earlier in the week.
In late April, a power grid failure led to the blackout of the entire Iberian Peninsula in Spain and Portugal.
The Czech blackout, shortly after noon, was triggered by the failure phase conductor on line V411, cutting power to eight major substations. Five were restored by the afternoon.
“It was an issue in the upper-level transmission grid,” Karel Hanzelka, spokesperson for Prague’s power provider PRE, told Czech Radio. “To put it simply, electricity stopped flowing into Prague from the outside.”
The cause of the outage remains under investigation.
There was no evidence of a cyberattack, National Cyber and Information Security Agency and counterterrorism unit confirmed.
In Prague, trams and metro lines stopped, traffic lights were inoperable and people were trapped in elevators.
Metro lines A, B, and C were temporarily out of service, Prague Morning reported.
In a reflection of how service outages varied, most trams on the right bank of the Vltava River in Prague were halted but those on the left bank weren’t affected.
Firefighters evacuated three trains on the Prague Kolin section.
“This is a serious and disruptive situation. Everyone is working intensively to restore power,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said in a video post on X.
He later activated the Central Crisis Staff.
“This isn’t something that can be fixed in minutes,” Industry Minister Luka Vlceksaid. “It will take hours. The outage has affected a significant portion of the country.”
Fire brigades were swamped with calls.
“The power outage is generating a high number of incidents — rescues from elevators, reported fires caused by diesel backup generators starting up,” Miroslav Rezac, a spokesman for Prague’s firefighters, said.
By 2 p.m., firefighters had responded to 215 elevator rescues nationwide.
In Kutna Hora, the entire hospital ran on a backup generator with an eight-hour fuel reserve. “We’re looking for a gas station to refill,” a hospital receptionist told Prague Radio.
Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague was not hit by the power outage, according to Czech media.
