Hundreds of thousands without power as Fiona wallops the Maritimes

Hundreds of thousands of customers in the Maritime provinces are without power as post-tropical storm Fiona brings intense, hurricane-strength winds and torrential rains to large swaths of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

Environment Canada said in an update at 3 a.m. AT that landfall was imminent. The storm was 123 kilometres southwest of Sydney and moving north at 65 km/h.

At 3 a.m. AT, more than 360,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were affected by outages, while P.E.I.'s Maritime Electric said more than 77,000 customers were without power. That means more than half the customers of both utilities are without power. N.B. Power was reporting more than 18,000 outages, concentrated in the province's southeast.

Hurricane or tropical storm warnings are in place throughout most of Atlantic Canada.

"It's going to a bad one," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who decided to delay his trip to Japan for the funeral for assassinated Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We of course hope there won't be much needed, but we feel there probably will be ...," Trudeau said. "Listen to the instructions of local authorities and hang in there for the next 24 hours."

"Fiona is expected to make landfall over eastern Guysborough county in the next hour," Environment Canada said. "Fiona is then expected to pass through Cape Breton this morning, and then reach the Quebec Lower North Shore and Southeastern Labrador by late tonight."

It said severe winds and rainfall, large waves and storm surges were all occurring.

Environment Canada said Friday that similar storms have caused structural damage to buildings. "Construction sites may be particularly vulnerable. Wind impacts will be enhanced by foliage on the trees, potentially causing prolonged and widespread utility outages," the agency said.

A fire official said a chimney blew over at a three-storey apartment building in the Grahams Corner neighbourhood of Dartmouth and fell through the building. Nobody was hurt.

Environment Canada said rainfall will be significant, particularly north and west of Fiona's track where it could lead to flooding. Some areas could see as much as 200 mm of rain.

Some waves along Nova Scotia's eastern shore could build to be more than 10 metres tall, with waves along southern Newfoundland Saturday morning reaching higher heights.

"Waves over eastern portions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Cabot Strait could be higher than 12 metres," Environment Canada said.

It said the western Gulf will see waves from the north up to eight metres in some places, "which will probably cause significant erosion for north facing beaches of Prince Edward Island."