Downed power lines and homes washed out to sea are some of the aftermath left by Storm Fiona after it passed through the east coast of Canada.
Local media are reporting that a woman is missing after the storm dragged her into the sea on the island of Newfoundland.
Fiona was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm on Friday.
Such weather events are rare in Canada and, according to police, the weather event “is unlike anything we’ve ever seen”.
Parts of five Canadian provinces experienced torrential rains and winds of up to 160 km/h causing floods and left hundreds of thousands without power.
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau He said he would deploy the military to help with the cleanup in Nova Scotia.
“If there is anything the federal government can do to help, we will be there,” assured the president, who also informed that he would cancel his planned trip to Japan. attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to cope with the consequences of the storm.
“A pile of rubble in the ocean”
In the Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, as well as parts of Quebec, were issued tropical storm warnings.
In the small town of Channel-Port-aux-Basques, in the extreme southwest of Newfoundland, intense flooding caused some houses and office buildings were washed away by the sea, as reported by local journalist René Roy on state television Radio Canada.
The area is under a state of emergency.
“This is by far the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life,” Roy said.
The reporter also added that many houses were left as “a lot of debris in the ocean right now”.
“There is a building that has literally disappeared. There are whole streets that have disappeared.”
Authorities later confirmed that at least 20 houses had been destroyed.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said a woman had been rescued after she was “thrown into the water when her house collapsed” in the area.
Power companies have warned that it could take days to restore powerbecause the wind speed is still too high to start working on downed power lines.
Severe hurricanes in Canada are rare, as storms generally lose their energy as they hit cooler northern waters and become post-tropical.
Nova Scotia was last hit by a tropical cyclone in 2003 with Hurricane Juana Category 2 storm that killed two people and severely damaged structures and vegetation.
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