Thousands without power in parts of Quebec

Hydro Quebec employees work on a power line Tuesday, March 21, 2023 in Deux-Montagnes, Que.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Thousands of Quebecers woke up on Sunday with no electricity at home.

Hydro-Quebec’s website reported there were more than 41,000 customers without power at 11:15 a.m., up from about 15,000 earlier this morning. The number of outages has been fluctuating throughout the day.

Most of the affected customers were in the Montérégie (30,344) and Eastern Townships (6,396) regions by the late morning hours.

• Map of Hydro-Quebec power outages

By 5 p.m., the number of households without power had fallen to about 8,000.

Some of the outages were due to “equipment failure” or damage caused by vegetation, according to the power utility’s website. Some of the estimated restoration times range from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., depending on the area.

Some parts of Quebec were under weather warnings from Environment and Climate Change Canada for heavy rainfall and freezing rain on Sunday.