Group of Cardiff schoolchildren left stranded in Spain after major power outage (2025)

The children from a Cardiff school were due home on Monday night but are being well looked after by school staff

A group of students from Cardiff have been left stranded in Spain following the power cuts that affected large parts of Spain on Monday.

Spain declared a national emergency after yesterday’s (April 28) nationwide power outage forced crucial services like subway systems, payments, airports and hospitals to shut down. While Spain’s national grid operator, Red Eléctrica has said that the demand in the affected peninsular electrical system has been “normalised”, disruptions still remain. The pupils from Cardiff were on a school trip in Spain when the outage hit, and are expected to remain in the country for at least another day.

The students from The Cathedral School, in Llandaff, Cardiff, went to the airport in Madrid on Monday to find their flight had been cancelled. The school has since confirmed that the students, along with their teachers were affected by the “unforeseen” circumstances” in Spain.

However, the school confirmed that they are in regular contact with the students, who are being looked after by the school’s "wonderful" teaching staff.

It added that the school is currently liaising with the relevant authorities in the outage hit country to ensure the students’ "safe and quick return."

It is expected that the students will reach back to Wales by Wednesday. Never miss a Cardiff story by signing up to our daily newsletter here

A spokesperson for The Cathedral School, Llandaff said: "A group of pupils and staff from The Cathedral School have been affected by the unforeseen circumstances in Spain whilst on a school trip.

"We are in regular contact with the group and the pupils are being looked after by our wonderful teaching staff.

"We are working with the relevant organisations in Spain to ensure their safe and quick return home and expect all of the group to be back by Wednesday."

The UK government, which regularly issues travel advisories to people travelling abroad has said that the power outages in Spain have largely been "resolved", but warned that "some disruptions remain."

The full advisory reads: "Power outages which affected Andorra, mainland Spain and mainland Portugal on Monday 28 April have largely been resolved but some disruption remains.

"We are monitoring the situation. There may still be some travel disruption, check with your tour operator or airline for more information before travelling. Follow the advice of the local authorities and monitor local updates."

As the power outage hit Spain yesterday, WalesOnline spoke to a Welsh family who were also left stranded in the Spanish city of Santander when the power outage hit the country.

Describing the situation in Spain at the time the power outage hit Seren Thomas, 21, from Pontllanfraith, said: "It was insane, there were people everywhere; shop owners, school children. And traffic too, so many cars and because the lights had stopped it was chaos. Everyone was scrambling to get a bus and they were heaving.

"It was really good when the police came and started to control the traffic. However, everyone was so lovely and helpful when we asked what was going on. At first we didn't believe them when they said the whole of Spain had a power cut."

The cause of these power outages that Spain remained a mystery throughout yesterday, but now the countries are focussing on finding answers.

Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday that his government has two priorities: restoring Spain's electrical system and finding the causes of the blackout so that a similar event "never takes place again."

While Spain’s electricity operator Red Red Eléctrica said that the demand in the peninsular electrical system was "normalised" at 11.15 am local time, the Portuguese grid operator REN has announced that all 89 power substations have come back online and power has been restored to all 6.4 million customers.