Around 50,000 Montreal households were left without electricity late Wednesday afternoon, during outages that mainly affected the eastern part of the city due to a broken gas main.
At 5 p.m., 49,739 Hydro-Québec customers were without power, according to the state-owned company’s Info-pannes website. Their number had dropped to 31,244 by 6:30 p.m.
The vast majority of outages were located around Maisonneuve Park, in the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough, and affected several medical centres in the area.
Most of the outages began around 4:45 p.m. due to a “public safety” outage, which is an “emergency service interruption at the request of the relevant authorities to ensure the safety of the public or personnel,” the website states.
Excavation work carried out by a third party caused a break in an underground gas line on Pie-IX Boulevard, between Hochelaga and de Rouen streets, confirmed by email Elaine Arsenault, senior advisor, media and public affairs at Énergir.
“A security perimeter has been set up by the fire services, which is currently causing a power outage for several thousand people,” she said around 6:45 p.m.
The leak was, however, sealed a few minutes later, allowing traffic to resume on Pie-IX Boulevard and electricity to be restored in the affected areas.
For its part, Hydro-Québec assured that the power would be restored as soon as they received authorization from emergency services.
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