Hurricane Fiona hits Canada, knocking out power to half a million homes
Post-tropical storm Fiona made landfall in eastern Canada on Saturday September 24th.
Several maritime provinces as well as eastern Quebec were swept by winds of more than 120 km/h, while torrential rains fell.
REUTERS - INGRID BULMER
Text by: Pascale Guéricolas
2 mins
Post-tropical storm Fiona made landfall in eastern Canada on Saturday September 24th.
Several maritime provinces as well as eastern Quebec were swept by winds of more than 120 km/h, while torrential rains fell.
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Never have the inhabitants of Port-aux-Basques, a village in Newfoundland, seen such devastation.
Pieces of houses, sheds, wood debris, float in the midst of raging waves the height of a four-story building.
Similar scenes occurred on several coasts of Nova Scotia, where the storm made landfall in the morning, with winds above 144 kph, and in the Magdalen Islands, Quebec.
🚨🚨 Notice from #GRCTNL: Port aux Basques subject to a state of emergency.
Several electrical fires, flooded residences and washed-out roads keep first responders busy.
Obey evacuation orders and find a safe place to weather the storm.
pic.twitter.com/y2gXu8Q3q6
— RCMP Newfoundland and Labrador (@GRCTNL) September 24, 2022
The authorities ask not to approach the coast to take photos, and especially not to circulate in order to make room for emergency vehicles.
The road network is also cut in several of these regions where tree trunks, poles and power lines litter the road, reports our correspondent in Quebec,
Pascale Guéricolas
.
Residents of houses that are flooded or threatened with being washed away have access to several shelters.
Winds of 130 km/h
Another consequence of these bad weather, more than 500,000 Canadian homes are without electricity, according to local operators.
Nova Scotia Power, which supplies the province of Nova Scotia, for example, reported more than 400,000 customers without electricity around 2 p.m. GMT.
In the other two provinces most affected, the Prince Edward Island operator had 82,000 households cut off from the network a little earlier, and that of New Brunswick 44,000.
In its last bulletin published at 11:45 GMT, the Canadian Hurricane Center (CHCO) evokes winds of approximately 130 km/h in Nova Scotia, and notes that Fiona is moving at a speed of 55 km/h towards north-northeast.
"
Big waves have reached the eastern shore of Nova Scotia and southwestern Newfoundland, and they could exceed 12 meters
," he said.
Fiona passed some 100 miles off Bermuda on Friday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean.
The hurricane inflicted gusts of 160 km / h and heavy rains on this British territory of some 64,000 inhabitants located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but without any casualties or major damage being reported.
The hurricane killed four people in Puerto Rico, a US territory, according to an official quoted by the media.
One death was reported in Guadeloupe (France) and two in the Dominican Republic.
► To read also: Hurricane Fiona arrives in the Dominican Republic after hitting Puerto Rico
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