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Christmas celebrated without electricity in
parts of Canada, USA
-DR. ABDUL
RUFF COLACHAL
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Homes and businesses were without power on 24th-25th December
in parts of central and northeastern USA and into Canada after a weekend ice
and snow storm rolled across the region.
The entire region was under a cold alert, with temperatures
expected to be well below freezing Tuesday.
Some US states kept emergency shelters open for people without
power. The number of customers in Maine without power spiked to more than
100,000, even as Central Maine Power Co. sent more than 1,000 workers to help
restore power throughout the state. That was the case, too, in Michigan, where
Jackson-based Consumers Energy — the state's largest utility — said it hadn't
had this many outages during any Christmas week since its founding 126 years
ago. Close to 17 percent of its 1.8 million electric customers lost power
during the storm that hit late Saturday; roughly 157,000 remained without it
In Toronto, Officials in Canada's Ontario province said, 72,000
people were without electricity on Christmas Day and their efforts to light up
on the night did not get any positive response. ,
Elsewhere in Canada, tens of thousands of people are still
without power in New Brunswick and Quebec, and hundreds in Nova Scotia. More
than 500,000 households in the north-eastern USA and the south-eastern Canada
are still without electricity after last weekend's severe ice storm. Utility
crews are working round-the-clock, but warn that some homes could be without
power at least until Saturday.
At least 27 deaths in the region have been linked to the storm.
Most of those were caused by apparent carbon monoxide poisoning as people used
gas generators, charcoal stoves and other appliances to heat their homes in
freezing temperatures. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford warned earlier this week "I
understand they want to keep warm, but you cannot do this. This is deadly".
Other fatalities were caused by traffic accidents.
Environment Canada meteorologist David Phillips warned earlier
this week that the ice would remain as temperatures stayed below freezing.
"There's no natural melting going on," he said. "It's going to
be human effort and endeavor that will get rid of the sheath of ice that's
covering eastern Canada."
In the USA, states from Maine to Michigan have been affected by
the adverse weather. Travel between Toronto and Montreal, Ottawa and New York
had been disrupted.
People elect political parties only to govern them without
harming their genuine interests and by proper ways.
As the terrocratic regimes in the west ignore the available
methods of electrify generation other than by nuclear mode, people of both USA
and Canada suffer due to shortage of power supply.
One does not know if the regimes deliberately cut power to make
life miserable fro the users, as it is done in India I and other less developed
nations where most of the people live without proper nutrition and support and
regular power cut is very common. .
Hopefully,
the US-Canada regimes would
ensure that the electric link is resumed
at the earliest.
It is time to
devise non-nuclear techniques to generate enough electricity for
entire world, country wise, region wise and globally.
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