OTTAWA • Bahamians are scrambling to escape the islands hardest hit by Dorian, which has killed at least 43 people, while the storm wreaked havoc farther north in Canada after making landfall near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday.

Winds produced by the remnants of Hurricane Dorian tore roofs off buildings, downed trees, caused a construction crane to collapse and left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in three provinces in Canada.

Online maps posted by utilities in Nova Scotia and the neighbouring provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island showed more than 450,000 locations were without electricity early Saturday evening, the result of power lines being knocked down by intense winds before the storm made landfall.

As the winds began inflicting damage in Canada, the storm was initially upgraded to Category 2 by hurricane tracking services in Canada and the United States.

But by Saturday afternoon, they declared that Dorian was no longer a hurricane but "a very intense post-tropical system".

That aside, Environment Canada, the country's weather agency, reported that its offshore weather buoys were recording winds of more than 144kmh and waves as high as 19m.

Along with the winds, forecasts predict that many areas will get as much rain over the next 24 hours as they receive in a month in the often damp maritime region.

No injuries were reported. But even before the storm made landfall in Nova Scotia, large numbers of trees were uprooted or broken apart.

Along with the pieces of roofs, the trees damaged power lines, houses and parked cars.

Most dramatically, a construction crane at a high-rise building project in downtown Halifax buckled and collapsed after being buffeted by the winds. Adjacent buildings, while undamaged, were evacuated as a precaution.

In a statement, Mr Ralph Goodale, Canada's Public Safety Minister, said that the federal government would provide recovery assistance, including the use of the military.

Restoring electricity, however, would likely be delayed.

Dorian was expected to strike the western portion of Newfoundland yesterday, according to weather forecasters.

Meanwhile, in the Bahamas, hundreds or even thousands of people were still missing, officials said, as search-and-rescue teams continued their grim retrievals.

While Prime Minister Hubert Minnis called the loss of life "catastrophic and devastating", Health Minister Duane Sands said the final death toll "will be staggering".

A loosely coordinated armada of passenger planes, helicopters and both private and government boats and ships - including redirected cruise liners - has converged in the Bahamas on the badly battered Abaco Islands to help with evacuations, both to Nassau and the US mainland.

NYTIMES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE