Toronto blackout puts top businesses in the dark and forces mall evacaution
A power outage in Toronto’s downtown core has left the offices of Canada’s top businesses in the dark, forced the evacuation of one of the city’s biggest shopping malls, and caused some bank branches to be locked.
The power utility Hydro One said the outage, which started at about noon on Thursday, affected 10,000 customers in downtown Toronto, Canada’s biggest city. Hydro One was investigating but gave no details on the cause.
A spokesperson for the Toronto fire department said it received calls at 12.32pm ET about a crane coming into contact with Hydro One transmission lines, but said the department could not say with certainty if that had caused the outage.
The power failure prompted workers from downtown towers to spill on to the streets, taking to sidewalks and parks.
Branches of the biggest banks, including Royal Bank of Canada, TorontoDominion Bank and Bank of Montreal, in the area were locked, and staff were seen sitting in the dark in some locations, according to a Reuters witness.
“It was 12.39, we were working in the office and suddenly it went blank,” said Santiago Orazco, who works in Scotia Plaza, in downtown Toronto. “A bunch of people have exited from the emergency door along with us.“
The underground subway operator TTC said its services were normal though the outage tripped air conditioning. TTC warned that streetcar customers might experience major delays.
The Toronto stock exchange said its offices temporarily lost power but its systems did not.
The outage caused traffic lights to stop working in one area, according to a Reuters witness. Toronto police told people to treat those intersections as four-way stops.