Hurricane “Fiona” has made landfall on Canada’s east coast and has already paralyzed parts of the infrastructure. After a massive power outage, there is even a risk of storm surges.
Hurricane Fiona has hit Canada’s east coast with heavy rain and hurricane-force winds. As a so-called post-tropical storm, it hit land in the province of Nova Scotia early on Saturday morning (local time) with wind speeds of up to 148 kilometers per hour, as the Canadian hurricane center announced.
On the island of Beaver Island, about 60 kilometers west of the provincial capital Halifax, wind gusts of 161 kilometers per hour were measured, it said. The hurricane center warned of storm surges in parts of Nova Scotia, the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence and western Newfoundland.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Nova Scotia temporarily lost power on Saturday morning, according to electricity provider Nova Scotia Power. According to the local electricity provider, there were also tens of thousands of outages in the neighboring province of Prince Edward Island. The police of the provincial capital Charlottetown published photos of fallen trees and power poles on Twitter.
“Fiona” passed the British overseas territory of Bermuda on Friday as a hurricane in the second strongest category. “Fiona” made landfall in Puerto Rico last weekend as a category one of five hurricane, causing flooding and severe damage. The storm also caused flooding, damage and, according to media reports, at least two deaths in the Dominican Republic. dpa
