The solar eclipse of 11 August 1999 was total along a belt crossing Central Europe, where there is a high density of magnetic observatories. We studied the transient geomagnetic effects produced by the temporary cutoff of the ionizing solar radiations during the eclipse. It is the first case in which the phenomenon has been analysed in a multisite context. For observatories along the umbra path, a model based on the equivalent electric current schema is proposed.