A power outage hit the heart of downtown Toronto on Thursday, plunging the offices of major Canadian companies into darkness and one of the city's largest shopping malls. They were forced to evacuate and some bank branches were affected. Lock people in elevators and lock them up.
Hydro One, Ontario's largest power distribution company, tweeted that it was investigating a report that a crane-equipped barge hit a high-voltage power line and that Toronto he attempted to reroute power to Hydro. I said yes. Power distribution to downtown Toronto.
In an update on Thursday, Toronto Hydro said connectivity had been restored to about half of the roughly 10,000 affected customers.
Toronto is Canada's largest city and financial center, with the Central Business District home to some of the largest banks, insurance companies and stock exchanges.
The power outage drained workers from downtown skyscrapers into the streets, onto sidewalks and parks, and closed many cafes and restaurants during peak business hours.
The City of Toronto Fire Department said it responded to "multiple calls" of people trapped in elevators during the blackout.
Canada's Immigration Minister Sean Fraser tweeted at 1:10 p.m., "Came to town and jumped in the elevator just before the blackout. Still here. Terrible timing." Since then he has left the elevator.
Reuters eyewitnesses said the branches of major banks in the area, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank of Montreal, were locked and in some places employees sat in the dark.
None of the three banks immediately commented.
"It was 12:39. We were working in the office and suddenly nothing appeared," said Santiago, who works at Scotia Plaza in downtown Toronto. Orasco said. "A lot of people came out of the emergency exits with us."
The TTC, which operates the subway, said the power outage triggered air conditioning, but operations were normal. rice field. The TTC has warned tram users of the potential for significant delays.
According to the Toronto Stock Exchange, the office was temporarily out of power, but the system was not. The University of Toronto said some buildings were affected.
A blackout caused traffic lights to stop working in some areas, according to Reuters eyewitnesses. Toronto police have instructed people to treat these intersections as he-four-way stops.
EDT The outage began around noon (1600 GMT). Some Hydro One customers expressed their complaints on Twitter.
The blackout comes just one month after a system failure at Rogers Communications Inc. left telecommunications services for dozens of users and services across Canada out of action for nearly 19 hours.
