The Biggest Blackouts in Modern History

The recent blackout that plunged parts of Spain, Portugal, and France into darkness marked Europe’s worst energy disruption in two decades.

But globally, it’s far from the most severe. From freezing Texas in 2021 to a total grid collapse in Pakistan in 2023 that left 230 million people without power, modern infrastructure continues to show its vulnerabilities.

Other massive blackouts include India’s 2012 outage, the largest in history, affecting 670 million people; Argentina’s 2019 failure that spread to Uruguay and Paraguay; and the infamous 2003 blackout across parts of the U.S. and Canada caused by a software bug.