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. 2025 Jul;30(26):2500405.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2025.30.26.2500405.

Exploring all-cause mortality surveillance during the Iberian Peninsula power outage, Spain, 28 April 2025

David García-García  1   2 , Inmaculada León-Gómez  3   1   2 , Lucía Pérez-Marín  3   1   2 , Diana Gómez-Barroso  1   2
Affiliations

Exploring all-cause mortality surveillance during the Iberian Peninsula power outage, Spain, 28 April 2025

David García-García et al. Euro Surveill. 2025 Jul.

Abstract

A general power outage affected the Iberian Peninsula on 28 April 2025. We explored all-cause mortality in Spain using the monitoring system MoMo. Starting 28 April, over 3 days, 147 excess deaths (95% CI: - 35 to 330) appeared to occur in the country, corresponding to a 4.2% increase over expected mortality. A larger significant 7.9% increase was estimated in 65-84-year-olds (94 excess deaths; 95% CI: 63 to 125). While MoMo cannot attribute such excesses to specific causes, findings highlight the usefulness of real-time surveillance systems for assessing large-scale emergencies.

Keywords: Iberian Peninsula; Power outage; Spain; mortality; surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

This figure depicts, between the 30st of March and the 11th of May 2025, the daily outputs of the Spanish mortality monitoring system. This system is called MoMo. The top panel shows the MoMo’s estimate for the observed and modelled number of deaths occurring each day together with the corresponding 99% confidence intervals. The bottom panel shows the daily number of death notification counts.
Figure 1
Outputs from the all-cause daily mortality monitoring system, Spain, 30 March–11 May 2025
This figure shows for each day, the differences between observed and expected deaths in Spain. It concerns a reference period ranging from 15th of April to 11th of May in selected years. The figure has a tabular form, with stacked rows representing years. Each row has squares representing every day of the reference period. Days with excess mortality are shaded in red and days with deficit mortality are shaded in blue. In 2025, the squares for the day of the power outage and the 2 following days are discerned by a bright red border. The figure enables a visual comparison of excess or deficit mortality in these 3 days, with excess or deficit mortality in other days of the reference period.
Figure 2
Difference between daily observed and expected deaths in Spain during the reference period: 15 April to 11 May, for years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025
This figure shows a map of Spain. For each province, the relative cumulative excess or deficit mortality for the 3 days including the 28th, 29th and 30th of April 2025 is shown. Provinces with excess mortality are shaded in red and provinces with deficit mortality are shaded in blue. Positive or negative numbers figuring on each mapped province respectively represent the number of deaths above or below expectations.
Figure 3
Relative 3-day cumulative excess/deficit mortality (% over/under expected mortality) for each province, Spain, 28 April 2025 (n = 52 provinces)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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