Nearly 30,000 lose power on Vancouver Island amid rare spring snow

BC Hydro said nearly 30,000 customers on Vancouver Island lost power Sunday morning in an area just north of Nanaimo.

Most of the outages affected Qualicum Beach and Parksville, a region that saw rare spring snow Sunday.

BC Hydro cited several causes for the outages, including failed transmission circuits, downed wires and the snowstorm itself.

“The outage on #VancouverIsland was caused by heavy, wet snow bringing down several trees,” the Crown corporation.

“Crews are working to complete repairs but customers may still experience an outage once the line is restored due to smaller, localized damage.”

By 5 p.m., BC Hydro said it had reduced the number of outages to about 1,000.

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