Old Montreal: Gas leak forces evacuations & business closures

A gas leak in Old Montreal on Friday morning forced the evacuation of dozens of residents and the temporary closure of several nearby businesses for most of the day.

According to the Montreal fire department (SIM), the incident occurred around 7:43 a.m. at the corner of Notre-Dame and Bonsecours streets, near City Hall.

As a safety precaution, power was cut off across a large section of the neighbourhood.

The leak was capped around 1:55 p.m. and the power returned around 3:30 p.m. – the area reopened as temporary steel plates were set to be installed so vehicles could circulate.

“What happened was during work done by a contractor – not Energir-related work, we don’t know what the work is on site – the building connector was hit by the third party machinery, causing a leak,” a spokesperson for Energir told CityNews.

Adding that they had three teams onsite excavating in three different sections around the leak.

Once it was capped just before 2 p.m. Energir was able to pinch the gas line and make the repair.

They will be back in the coming days to finish the work fully – but work needs to be done to repair the roads that were excavated.

The SPVM was onsite to help secure the scene, as more than 40 firefighters and Energir employees worked to fix the situation.