Five dead in Canada after outage

TORONTO – Five people in Canada are dead, likely from carbon monoxide poisoning, police said Tuesday, as tens of thousands remain without power in below-freezing weather after a weekend ice storm.

Police commander Dacid Vijakainen warned residents to avoid using generators and barbecues to heat their homes after a 52-year-old man and his 72-year-old mother died northeast of Toronto.

Police in Quebec said carbon monoxide poisoning is believed to be the cause of three deaths in a chalet on the province’s North Shore.

Toronto issued an extreme cold weather alert, and temperatures were set to plunge to 6.8 degrees Fahrenheit Tuesday night. The freezing conditions will last throughout the week, according to Environment Canada.

Officials said 85,000 customers in Toronto were still without power, down from 300,000 people at the height of the outages over the weekend.

In Quebec, 31,700 customers remained without power as of early Tuesday. In New Brunswick, more than 40,000 customers were still in the dark.