AFP

Hurricane Fiona leaves ‘footprint’ of destruction on Canada’s east coast

Hurricane Fiona slammed into Canada’s Atlantic coast on Saturday, killing a woman and leaving 500,000 homes without power. Uprooted trees, flattened houses, damaged power lines… “Fiona has come and left her mark on Nova Scotia and the neighboring provinces,” said the head of government of this region, Tim Houston, during a conference Saturday afternoon press. “It’s not over,” he warned. Violent gusts of wind are expected to persist into the evening, said meteorologist Bob Robichaud, who however noted that “conditions should gradually improve over the next three to six hours”. According to Canadian authorities, Fiona, downgraded to a post-tropical storm, was still causing sustained winds of 120 km / h at 1700 GMT and moving at a speed of 37 km / h towards the northeast. “Large waves reached the east coast of Nova Scotia and southwestern Newfoundland, and could exceed 12 meters,” they noted. Two women were taken away in Channel-Port aux Basques, in the province of Newfoundland, according to a police spokeswoman. One of the two victims, dragged after the collapse of his house, was rescued and hospitalized, the other is still missing. “It’s one of the worst days of my life,” said René Roy, another resident of this city, to Radio Canada. “It does not stop (…) Many houses have gone to the sea”, he lamented. “I woke up around five in the morning because my bed was shaking!” Shaun Bond, who lives in Sydney, Nova Scotia, told AFP. “I live on the second floor of a century-old house and it was moving and making noises like I had never heard before.” – “We are with you” – “Thinking of all those affected by Hurricane Fiona. Please know that we are with you,” tweeted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, announcing that federal authorities were ready “to provide additional resources to the provinces”. “We have never seen such weather conditions,” Charlottetown police in Prince Edward Island said on Twitter. “It’s unbelievable, there’s no electricity, there’s no Wi-Fi, there’s no network,” the city’s mayor, Philip Brown, confirmed to the public channel Radio-Canada. “A lot of trees have fallen, there is a lot of flooding on the roads,” he added. A tree fell on a fire truck and due to a broken electrical cable, the firefighters inside had to wait for the intervention of technicians from the energy company Nova Scotia Power to be able to get out. Nova Scotia Power, which supplies electricity to Nova Scotia, reported more than 384,000 customers without power around 5:30 p.m. GMT. In the other two hardest-hit provinces, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, operators said there were 82,000 and 44,000 homes without power, respectively. – ‘Nothing serious’ – Fiona passed through Bermuda on Friday, after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean. With hurricane force, it hit this British territory of some 64,000 inhabitants located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with gusts of 160 km / h and heavy rain, but without causing any casualties or significant damage. “We had some minor damage to our premises, but nothing serious,” Jason Rainer, owner of a souvenir shop in Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda, told AFP. The territory, located 1,000 km from the United States and accustomed to hurricanes, is one of the most isolated places in the world, which makes an emergency evacuation almost impossible. Fiona caused the deaths of four people in Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean, according to an official quoted by the media. In addition, one death has been reported in Guadeloupe, a French overseas department, and two in the Dominican Republic. burs-ml-vgr/aue/ad/ll