In the east of the country, millions of homes are still without electricity

A blizzard hit Quebec and Ontario, two of Canada’s most populous provinces, on Wednesday, killing at least two people and causing extensive property damage. Two days after it passed, 630,000 Quebec homes were still without power, on the morning of Friday, April 7.

At the peak of the event, more than a million homes were without power. “We have restored power to one-third of the population affected by the blizzard’s outages.”Hydro-Québec announced the electricity supplier.

If the company estimates that power can be restored to most customers by midnight, “We know that for some customers it will last until Sunday, and it will last until Monday.”However, said Hydro-Québec spokesperson Regis Delier. of “Very favorable weather” Allow throughout the day “Speed ​​up service restoration”he added.

Half of the outages involved the city of Montreal

By then, the city of Montreal, which lists half of the outages, had opened six temporary emergency accommodation centers where residents without power spent the night. The centers were accessible during the day for those looking to warm up on the first day of the long Easter weekend.

“We are very satisfied with Hydro-Québec’s crisis management”For his part, Quebec Economy and Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon congratulated him during a press conference.

It was the biggest outage on Quebec’s power grid since the 1998 snowstorm that threw the province into chaos for weeks.

Since the storm began, two people have died: an eastern Ontario resident was killed by a falling tree on Wednesday, and a 60-year-old man in Quebec was killed by a branch while trying to clear his garden. , Thursday.

On Friday, hundreds of Montreal workers were still employed in the field, for example in parks, where many branches lay scattered on the ground after collapsing under the weight of the snow.

At about 1°C, the snow has melted, but wind speeds shake the trees, risking new branches falling. Officials continue to advise people not to approach power lines.