April 6, 2023, 9:57 PM
April 6, 2023, 9:57 PM
Two people dead and almost a million without electricity is the balance left this Thursday (04.06.2023) by a major ice storm in eastern Canada, and which in its wake caused considerable damage, especially in Montreal.
The storm affected Canada’s most populous provinces of Quebec and Ontario, causing the largest damage to Quebec’s power grid since 1998, when the city was plunged into weeks-long chaos.
Authorities reported two deaths, an eastern Ontario resident who died from a falling tree on Wednesday, and another Quebec man struck by a branch he was trying to cut in his yard.
“This is a difficult day for Montrealers and for people across Quebec and parts of Ontario suffering from electrical damage,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
On Thursday night, highway services worked to clear streets and roads blocked by thousands of trees that fell under the weight of the ice, and as a consequence also damaged power lines.
“Montreal is devastated” but the situation is “under control,” Quebec’s Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, told a press conference at a time when new freezing rain alerts were being raised.
The authorities called for prudence by warning the population not to travel through wooded areas or approach trees and power lines that have fallen to the ground.
The worst ice storm in the last 20 years
Numerous shelters have been set up to accommodate residents without power as temperatures approach freezing and work to restore power may still take several days.
In total, about a million Canadians were still without power Thursday, the vast majority in Quebec.
Since Wednesday night, Montreal has been covered in a thick layer of ice. Preliminary data shows that 3 to 4 cm of ice fell on the city in just a few hours.
“It’s the worst ice storm that has hit in the last 20 years,” Jean-Marc Grondin, a 64-year-old retiree who lives in the Plateau neighborhood in the city center, told AFP.
Grondin went outside to see the electrical transformer that fell and caught fire after a tree fell on Wednesday.
Just a few meters away, city officials work hard with saws to remove debris and branches.
“Unfortunately, we can think that with climate change there will be more and more events of this type in the coming years,” acknowledged François Legault, premier of the province of Quebec.
