Frustrated British holidaymakers in Portugal and Spain have slammed supermarket "queues like Alton Towers" after panic buying set in amidst the power outage plaguing the country.

Power is now being restored across the two countries following widespread blackouts, which began on Monday (April 28). Outages caused huge disruption to travel, banking and telecommuincations throughout both countries and experts are still trying to determine the cause.

Whilst authorities have ruled out any foul play including a cyber attack, the expereince has proven no less frustrating for those Brits hoping to make the most of the sunshine. In the Algarve, Nicola Boswell took to TikTok whilst visiting an Aldi store at 5pm where there was very little left on the shelves during the chaos.

"This is the situation in Aldi - there's queues bigger than Alton Towers in peak season," she cursed as she panned her camera around the lines of people waiting to be served. "There's nothing left to buy. Everything has completely sold out."

Whilst there in fact a handful of fresh fruit and vegetables left, the majority of the shop was indeed barren. Nicola continued: "This is unbelievable. The toilet roll is pretty, that's always the first to go. Look at the queues - they are right the way up the aisles."

Nicola continued: "Forget Aldi for water - there's none left, it's completely sold out." Whilst alcohol, cleaning products and baking products remained, there was little else to satisfy shoppers' needs

Over in Spain, meanwhile, another Brit admitted he had "never seen queues like it" as he shared footage from his location in Benidorm. Nigel Pope described it as a "disaster in the making" as he revealed shops were only letting a few customers in at a time in a bid to avoid mass hysteria.

"Everybody is buying water and supplies because the electricty could be out be out for days," he said. "It's a real disaster, we don't really know what is going on. I would normally use the lift but I've had to walk up and down the stairs to get my supplies. It's becoming a bit of a disaster zone.

Responding to Nicola's clip in Portugal, others hit out at the behaviour at shoppers. "Did people not learn anything after the pandemic?!" one person asked. A second fumed: "Animals just take what they really need, we humans just take it all."

Whilst a third pondered: "Don't people have food at home? When Covid hit, I didn't leave the house for 15 days, now I am much better prepared, I could last at least a month without going out, everyone needs survival kits."

Meanwhile, reacting to Nigel's surroundings in Spain, one TikTok user admitted: "To be fair they were warned! Always good to be prepared." Another noted: "It must be a nightmare." Whilst a third added in fear: "I'm due to fly out there on Wednesday, I don't know what is happening."

Spain has ruled out "unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena" as the cause of the blackout, meanwhile, which had previously been claimed and reported by authorities in Portugal.

The country's State Meteorological Agency said in a statement on X: "During the day of April 28, no unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena were detected in Spain, nor were there any sudden temperature changes in our network of weather stations."

Portugese power bosses blamed the widepread power outages on "anomalous oscillations" in very high-voltage lines. The effect is known as "induced atmospheric variation" and it could take up to a week for the network to fully normalise again.

Portugal's grid operator, REN (Rede Eletrica Nacional) has claimed interruptions to its own power supply were the result of a "fault in the Spanish electricity grid".