How Spain's nationwide power outage hit businesses

The recent blackout in Spain has disrupted daily life and various industries, with the retail and hospitality sectors hit particularly hard.

Transcript

00:01Subways, trains, elevators, everything is running again here in Madrid.

00:05But the main train station is still far from operating normally.

00:09Many people are still sorting out cancelled travel plans.

00:13That means many are still not making it to work or they're running late.

00:18That was the case here in Barcelona on Monday.

00:21Milena was alone in the shop when the power went out.

00:24She couldn't go to the storage room in the back.

00:26She had to keep an eye on the goods in the store the whole time

00:29since her colleague didn't make it in.

00:31We're doing what we can with everything that's happened right now.

00:35That's making things very hard for us.

00:37Surely we will have losses because everything is in the fridge

00:40and if the produce isn't in the fridge, it gets ruined.

00:46The situation was similar in fish shops.

00:49Ana Martinez caught a lucky break.

00:51The cod, for instance, was heavily salted

00:54and could last four hours without refrigeration.

00:57The freezers also held out for a while and defrosted slowly.

01:01Still, she was affected.

01:05We had to do without any technology and go back to older times.

01:09Because without phones, without the internet, you can't operate the checkout.

01:13Everything was a bit precarious.

01:15At the Spanish Volkswagen subsidiary SEAT, production is resuming slowly.

01:24On the day of the blackout, only around 1,000 cars were built in El Prat de Llobregat near Barcelona.

01:30Just half of a normal day's output.

01:33We are moving forward step by step.

01:39You have to understand that a company like ours, whether it's the paint shops or the foundry at the Prat plant, needs a lot of energy.

01:45To avoid another power surge or outage, we are ramping up gradually.

01:49During the course of the day, we expect to return to pre-blackout production levels.

01:55The Spanish Employers Association, CEOE, says other sectors, like oil refineries, will need weeks to return to normal.

02:03In the case of blast furnaces, it may take even longer, as some of them were damaged.

02:09The association estimates the overall cost of the blackout to the Spanish economy at no less than 1.6 billion euros.