Over 100 vehicles piled up and four people died in two separate crashes caused by strong winds and blowing snow in eastern Canada, police told AFP. Three people died in a heap of twisted metal after more than 60 vehicles collided on a highway outside Ottawa midday, officials said.
Moments later, dozens more were injured in a pileup east of Montreal after some 50 cars and trucks slammed into each other, leaving at least one person dead.
Meanwhile, a freight train was left hanging off a bridge west of Montreal after a derailment, and electricity was knocked out at 154,000 homes, also blamed on bad weather.
"There was blowing snow, white-out condition at the time," Ontario provincial police Constable Dana Mellon said.
Up to 60 people were injured in both crashes, with the number of casualties in the Ottawa accident forcing authorities to send a transit bus to carry the injured to hospital, Mellon said.
"Normally you don't have these white-out conditions. It started out this morning, it was just rain, then all of a sudden we had a big dump of snow and the temperature dropped, and the wind picked up and started blowing the snow around," he said.
The accidents occurred after flurries and freezing rain made roads very slippery and winds gusting up to 90 kilometers per hour (55 miles per hour) kicked up snow, reducing visibility to near zero, the government weather agency reported.
Environment Canada said an intense cold front swept through the region behind a warm front Friday, causing temperatures to plummet fast and high winds to blow.
