Brais Lorenzo / EPA
What if rumors were true? From the initial race to supermarkets to total collapse, this is what would happen in 72 hours of darkness, according to critical infrastructure experts.
Now it was a big scare and it is a source of small conversation. “Where were you in?” It begins to become a question at the level of the classic “where were you on April 25?” Or on September 11, but when we were all dark and without a network last Monday, the atmosphere was quite different.
The overall energy cut that affected Portugal and Spain only lasted about 12 hours, but quickly felt the general panicwhich was reflected in, who were the scene of a race to canned and water, but also in the mass that circulated early.
The alarm settled especially when news began to circulate that we could stay dark for three daysquickly denied by REN – national energy networks and the Spanish and European authorities.
Then, the opinions were divided between the “is soup, it is only 3 days” and the “let’s already buy tuna”. Experts give reason to the latter.
A total interruption of electricity for 72 hours could trigger the Absolute collapse of civilization As we know it – in health systems, water supply, food distribution and financial services.
Chaos: the first hours without energy
We took a humility Chapada at 11:30 am on Monday. We remember that running out of power means running out of appliances, without internet, no network to talk to others to the mobile phone or computer.
In Panic, it seemed sometimes that selfishness orders. And the my money? And the my Food to spoil in the fridge? And the my Water and canned reserves? In supermarkets, videos showed people pushing each other to bring much more than they needed (some even wanted to return shopping the next day).
The hospitals were already to generators; The meters and trains were stopped; The traffic lights did not work. Soon, the failures in communication and preparation would be a foreshadowing for much larger problems.
Time 12: Death begins to arrive
Half a day last day without energy, the priority service generators, such as hospitals, begin to failand death begins to arrive to take patients dependent on respirators or dialysis machines. One of the Monday involved precisely a 46-year-old woman from Valencia, who depended on an oxygen machine to breathe.
Sensitive medical products, such as plasma and vaccines stored in the cold, would start to spoil; Fresh foods of supermarkets, restaurants, cafes and distribution centers, which would no longer receive fuel in generators, would have the same destination.
A water shortage I would start to worry. Hydraulic bombs would no longer receive drinking water, the bathroom toilets would clog without running water, and people would start to store water in their bathtubs.
A day without energy: we return to the villages
If at sunrise on Tuesday we were still in the dark, the biggest enemy of any worker with regular working hours would be transit.
Imagine the day after general cut: no public transport, no supermarkets, no physical money, with damaged food and seeing the aircraft on land and stopped trains, people are on the roads, which are already completely congested in one desperate attempt to escape the cities. And the government began to mobilize the army to impose order on the streets.
Towards the villages, where those with wells and small plantations can stand a little better-for now.
48 hours: violence and martial law
The hospitals collapsed. Pharmacies began to be looted because there are no basic medications available such as insulin, antibiotics, painkillers. Elderly and sick at home began to die in their homes.
The authorities, confronted by the unexpected fall of telecommunications, were not able to coordinate. People, desperate, are on the streets to protest and, without money available – and with the help that there are no security cameras or alarms – began to loot stores and other establishments.
Time 72: Total collapse
It has passed 3 days, and the cities are uninhabitable. Without water, without food, without transport or sanitary services, the population moved to the field. Without control and social order, violence has increased exponentially.
We returned to the stone agecompares Network Specialist and Resource Management Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, from the University of California, to the conversation with the hypothetical scenario.
“If we have no electricity, we will basically return to the Stone Age. Especially with the type of population density we have in big cities. I can’t imagine what would happen if a large -scale event happened,” Jyothi said, alluding to Carrington and Miyake -related extreme events, related to seriously affecting modern technology, especially electric and communications networks.
The example of Carrington and Miyake events
O Evento Carrington It was the most powerful geomagnetic solar storm ever registered. Occurred in September 1 and 2, 1859when an ejection of the coronal mass of the sun hit the earth after an extremely intense solar eruption.
As Auroras Boreais were visible in latitudes as south as the Caribbean and the south of Spain; Telegraphs, the main means of communication at the time, ceased to work; Some systems functioned even without being tied, because of induced geomagnetic currents.
If such an event happened today, we would be facing a mass electric blackout of days or weeks; satellites would suffer, affecting GPS, meteorology, telecommunications and air navigation; The internet and (this time) the radio would be disturbed.
Already the eventos Miyake They are sudden and intense peaks of cosmic radiation recorded in the trees (through the increase of carbon-14) and in polar gells (through beryllium-10 and chloro-36). The first was identified in 2012 by Fusa Miyake. Unlike Carrington, they were never observed directly, but their effects were forever recorded in the trees rings. It is suspected that they may have been caused by extreme solar explosions or galactic cosmic rays, with magnitudes several times higher than 1859.
Today they would possibly destroy all global technological infrastructure and satellites.
If the Spanish power operator ensures that the blackout “will not happen again,” experts say the opposite. “It will be repeated in the coming months, this Tuesday warned Carlos Cagigal, Spanish specialist in electricity, in the program.
Tomás Guimarães, Zap //
