In the midst of a heat wave on Thursday afternoon, 200,000 homes in Montreal were without power. Flights departing from Montréal—Trudeau airport were also disrupted by the major outage. By early evening, 16,000 customers were still without power.
The triggering of a protection mechanism on one of the high voltage transmission lines is in question, said Hydro-Quebec. However, the cause of the triggering of the protection mechanism is not known at this time.
The blackouts began around 3 p.m. and then affected nearly 200,000 homes. The sectors affected were Côte-Des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-De-Grâce, Saint-Laurent, Côte-Saint-Luc, Hampstead, Kirkland, Mont-Royal, Beaconsfield and Pointe-Claire.
Service restoration has been underway since 4:10 p.m. “The majority of affected customers should have service restored by late afternoon or early evening,” Hydro-Quebec said on Twitter.
Around 6 p.m. Thursday, 88 outages across the city still deprived 16,526 customers of electricity, mainly in the West Island.
Some activities at Montréal-Trudeau airport were also disrupted due to the major power outage. Despite a gradual resumption of activities around 4:30 p.m., some systems remain affected, the airport said on Twitter, while recommending travelers to check their flight schedule.
1er In June, 250,000 customers across the province were also deprived of power due to the tripping of protection mechanisms on the network. Smoke from forest fires and heat were to blame.