Montreal flooding shuts down city after sudden torrential downpour

Cars quickly went from driving on clear road to being abandoned in mini lakes

An intense downpour caused flooding in parts of Montreal forcing parts of the city to shut down.

Within minutes clear streets turned into rivers and cars looked like they were driving through lakes with the bottoms of their doors in water. Many drivers were forced to abandon their vehicles in the middle of the road.

Read more about the wall of rain

The sewer system became overwhelmed by the downpour and shut down as manhole covers blew off.

The main metro line was forced to close and passengers on buses had issues of their own. As seen in this video, passengers on this route 491 bus in Lachine had to wait with their feet up to be rescued as water covered the floor and the bus could no longer move.

Environment Canada said as much as 80 millimetres fell in less than an hour before abruptly stopping. Workers cleared the way for the sewer system to start draining the water again, but more than 28,000 people lost power.

See more video of the flooding including a car being lifted up by water rushing through a sewer.

(CP photo)