Paris: The power surge that caused paralysing blackouts in Spain and Portugal in April was an unprecedented event in Europe and maybe the world, an expert panel investigating the event said Friday.

"This was the most severe blackout incident in Europe in the last 20 years," Damian Cortinas, president of the association of electricity grid operators ENTSO-E, said during a presentation of a preliminary report into the incident.

He said "cascading overvoltages" were behind this "first of its kind" blackout in the continent.

"We think in the world as well," Cortinas said, while cautioning that the experts did not have all the information from every country in the world.

"This is new territory. This is also why we need a bit of time to be sure that we analyse what's going on and what would happen, but it is a first of its kind."

Overvoltage occurs when there is too much electrical voltage in a network, overloading equipment. It can be caused by surges in networks due to oversupply or lightning strikes, or when protective equipment is insufficient or fails.

The April 28 outage cut internet and telephone connections, halted trains, shut businesses and plunged cities into darkness across Spain and Portugal as well as briefly affecting southwestern France.

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