MADRID: Spain's government on Wednesday (May 14) ruled out a cyberattack on the national grid operator as the cause of the huge blackout of unknown origin that crippled the Iberian Peninsula last month.

Authorities have been scrambling to find answers more than two weeks after the Apr 28 outage cut telecommunications, halted transport and plunged cities into darkness across Spain and Portugal.

Spanish grid operator Red Electrica said it had detected no "cybersecurity incident" during the crisis, after the government had refused to rule out any potential explanation.