Homes and businesses were without power on 24^th-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 for 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.

د. عبد راف 

-BY DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL has been an educationist, Columnist-Commentator  on world affairs Expert on Mideast Affairs, Chronicler of Foreign occupations & Freedom movements (Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya, etc.) Chancellor-Founder of Centor for International Affairs(CIA);   Former university Teacher;  Editor:INTERNATIONAL OPINION; FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES; Author of books;website: http://abdulruff.wordpress.com/ mail: abdulruff_jnu@yahoo.com/Phone: 91-8129081217---(Account: No 62310377429 - CIF No: 78215311481- State Bank of Hyderabad, India)

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