Parts of eastern Canada were waking up to damage from powerful storm Fiona on Sunday, as meteorologists said the worst weather had passed.
The storm tore into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland on Saturday, cutting power to thousands and washing houses into the sea as it brought fierce winds and rains “like nothing we’ve ever seen,” police said.
Two women were swept into the ocean in Newfoundland, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. One was rescued, and investigators were looking into the second case.
Mayor Brian Button of Channel-Port aux Basques, on the southwestern tip of Newfoundland, said in a Facebook video Saturday night that at least 20 homes had been destroyed and the community looked like a “total warzone.”
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“We’ve got destruction everywhere.”
A boil water order was in effect, Button said, encouraging residents in need to take shelter at a local elementary school.
As of late Saturday afternoon, nearly 500,000 homes were without power across the region as the storm hammered a wide area, felling countless trees and ripping roofs from buildings.
“The power lines are down everywhere,” Erica Fleck, assistant chief of Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, told CBC. “It’s not safe to be on the roads.”
Although downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, Fiona still packed hurricane-force winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour as it first barreled into Canada after earlier battering the Caribbean, according to meteorologists.
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By early Sunday, the storm’s maximum sustained winds had slowed to 50 mph, according to the Canadian Hurricane Centre (CHC), with the government forecasting “strong winds” over northern Newfoundland, southeastern Labrador and southeastern Quebec.
“These winds will diminish later today,” the CHC said.
Nova Scotia hard hit
The storm first made landfall in Nova Scotia province around 3 am (0600 GMT), according to the CHC.
By Saturday night, 294,000 households were still without electricity in the province, Nova Scotia Power reported, though repairs had started on some lines.
The utility’s president said outages could last for days.
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In New Brunswick, more than 25,000 were still without power while 82,000 customers were without electricity on Prince Edward Island.
“Trees have come down on homes, trees have come down on cars, there’s buildings that have collapsed,” Fire Chief Lloyd MacIntosh in the Nova Scotia town of North Sydney told CBC.
Police in Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward Island, posted images of tangles of downed power lines and roofs punctured by felled trees.
“It’s incredible,” said Charlottetown mayor Philip Brown on Radio-Canada TV. “It’s stronger than Hurricane Juan in 2003.”
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said in a statement that “it will take time for Nova Scotia to recover. I just ask everyone for their patience.”
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who canceled his trip to Japan for former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s funeral so that he can travel to the affected regions, told Canadians that the “government is standing ready to support provinces with any necessary resources.”
“We’re thinking first and foremost of the people who’ve had a terrifying past 12 hours,” Trudeau said during a press conference Saturday, adding that the country’s military would aid in the recovery effort.
Canada had issued severe weather warnings for swaths of its eastern coast, advising people to lay in supplies for at least 72 hours.
Rainfall of up to 7.5 inches (192 millimeters) was recorded in Nova Scotia, the CHC said, with waves of up to 40 feet (12 meters) hitting Nova Scotia and western Newfoundland.
The CHC said early Sunday the storm had passed Nova Scotia and moved inland to southeastern Quebec, predicting it would continue to weaken as it tracks across southeastern Labrador and over the Labrador Sea.
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Puerto Rico struggling
Fiona killed at least four people in Puerto Rico earlier this week, according to US media, while two deaths were reported in the Dominican Republic and one in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe.
President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico, a US territory that is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria five years ago.
The storm had skirted Bermuda on Friday. No fatalities or major damage were reported.
As the Caribbean licked its wounds, Cuba, Jamaica and Florida were bracing Sunday for the arrival of tropical storm Ian, which is expected to gain power in coming days to reach “at or near major hurricane strength,” the NHC said.
In anticipation of the storm, NASA called off the scheduled Tuesday launch of its historic uncrewed mission to the Moon, and Biden approved a state of emergency in Florida.
The new truce plan in Gaza includes “many demands” from Hamas, according to an Egyptian source
The talks held between delegations from Egypt and Israel in Tel Aviv for a truce in Gaza were “largely positive and successful” and included “many of the demands” of the Islamist movement Hamas, an Egyptian security source familiar with the negotiations and another from Hamas reported to EFE on Sunday.
A delegation from Hamas, headed by the member of the political bureau Khalil al-The Hague, is expected to arrive tomorrow in Cairo, mediator in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group, to deliver its response to the mediators, according to the Egyptian source, which asked not to be identified by the sensitivity of this issue.
This new proposal, on whose content it did not provide details, “overcomes the obstacles that hinder” the declaration of a truce, a ceasefire, the exchange of prisoners and hostages, as well as the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip.
The possible announcement of a truce “will contribute to the approval of a first phase and to the efforts of the entire international community to consolidate this ceasefire and seek to move to a permanent truce instead of a temporary one,” according to the informant.
On the other hand, a source of the Palestinian Islamist movement, which also asked for anonymity, confirmed to EFE that tomorrow a delegation from Hamas will arrive in the Egyptian capital to present its response to the new Israeli proposal.
The informant added that the proposal includes “reducing the minimum number of kidnapped that Hamas will commit to freeing and eliminating divisions in sections of the Gaza Strip.”
Last Friday, an Egyptian mediating delegation traveled to Tel Aviv to discuss this truce with Israel, while the Jewish State has warned that it will not allow the Palestinian group to delay and has once again threatened to invade Rafah, at the southern end of the strip and where more than a million refugees are overcrowded.
Hamas warns the United Kingdom that if it sends soldiers to Gaza they will be a “legitimate” military target
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas warned the United Kingdom on Sunday that if it deploys military personnel in the Gaza Strip, after information that they could help in the distribution of humanitarian aid, they will be “legitimate targets” of its armed wing.
“We alert Britain, or any other country, against the deployment of forces on land or on the coast of the Gaza Strip and affirm that they will be legitimate targets for our people and their resistance,” Hamas said in a statement.
The armed group charged against any initiative in the Palestinian enclave that does not have its approval.
The Islamist group responded to the information released on Saturday by the British network BBC, according to which the British Armed Forces could deploy troops to deliver humanitarian aid on the ground arriving in Gaza through the new floating dock that is being built by Israel and the United States.
The public broadcaster indicated that the United Kingdom could be the intermediary to which the United States referred when it said that it would not be the American soldiers, but others, who would distribute the food packages sent by ship from Cyprus and then transferred to Gaza.
Yesterday, the Israeli Army assured at a press conference with international media that international organizations would be in charge of the distribution of humanitarian aid, but did not indicate which ones would have agreed to collaborate.
Although the British Government has not confirmed the news, the BBC affirms, according to anonymous sources, that the Ministry of Defense is considering getting involved with ‘wet boots’ on the ground.
The possible role of the British forces would involve driving the trucks with the help from the landing boats on the floating runway, hundreds of meters long, and delivering it to a safe distribution area on dry land, the station explained.
The London Ministry of Defense reported on Friday, in turn, that the British Navy auxiliary ship RFA Cardigan Bay set sail from Cyprus to provide support for the construction of the temporary dock, which is led by the United States.
This ship will provide accommodation for hundreds of American sailors and soldiers, about whom Washington has made it clear that they will not set foot in Gaza territory.
Nancy Pelosi says that Netanyahu “could not have made things worse” in Gaza
Former President of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, “could not have made things worse” in the conflict in Gaza, in an interview broadcast this Sunday by the BBC.
Pelosi, who on Thursday participated in an event at the English university of Oxford, told the ‘Laura Kuenssberg Program’ that Netanyahu “was never a peace agent” and admitted that she “is not a great fan of his.”
The congresswoman said that what is happening in the Strip “challenges the conscience of the world” and maintained that the impact of famine on children “is almost unforgivable”, while calling the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7 “barbaric”.
“Israel has the right to defend itself, but the way it is doing it is a challenge because Netanyahu has never been a peace agent,” he said.
“I’m not a great admirer of yours; I couldn’t have done things worse than those tens of thousands, or whatever number it is, of dead people, malnourished children and the uncertainty that exists… and that’s what people are talking about,” he said.
Asked if she understood why young people in the United States used controversial tactics when protesting against the conflict, Pelosi opined that “when they go beyond the campuses and block the Golden Gate Bridge, or something else, for a long time, and people can’t go to the doctor or the hospital or anything urgent in their lives, they don’t get support.”
But he added: “How can demonstrations on (university) campuses be criticized? That’s a way of life in the United States.”
On Thursday, the British police evicted two pro-Palestinian protesters who protested during their speech on populism to students from the University of Oxford, while abroad another group criticized her for her defense of Israel and her position on the movement to support Palestine.
