More than a million people are without power in eastern Canada on Wednesday night due to a storm that damaged power lines. Quebec was under freezing rain alerts issued by the Ministry of the Environment, with authorities warning that “an accumulation of ice could break tree branches”.
More than 945,000 customers of the Hydro-Quebec company were without electricity around two o’clock in the morning on Thursday, out of a total of 4.5 million. “The breakdowns are mainly caused by the fall of branches or trees which give way under the weight of the ice,” explained the electricity supplier on its site. Nearly half of them (440,000) were in Montreal, where city crews were working to clear roads damaged by broken trees and cut wires.
The police of this city received a “high volume of calls in connection with the ice storm” while the mayor of the Quebec metropolis Valérie Plante called for vigilance.
In neighboring Ontario, more than 112,000 customers were also without power due to a winter storm that “caused trees and branches to fall on power lines”, according to electricity supplier Hydro. One. In the Canadian capital Ottawa, however, the alerts were lifted in the evening.