Sebastien St-Jean, AFP | Flooding at Rigaud in the suburbs of Montréal, Québec, seen on April 22.

Up to 6,000 people from a municipality west of Montréal were urgently evacuated overnight Saturday to Sunday after a dyke gave way, creating new problems for authorities already battling major floods that have affected eastern Canada for weeks.

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A dyke protecting the city of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac from Lac des Deux-Montagnes (Lake of Two Mountains), a few dozen kilometres from Montréal, gave way on Saturday night. The rupture caused a surge of water, at points 1.5 metres high, into several neighbourhoods but there were no reports of injuries, according to Québec security sources.

"We did not have time to do anything, the water rose as we talked. I just had time to get my medication," one resident told CBC, Canadia's public broadcaster.

Emergency services, supported by provincial police officers and the Canadian Armed Forces, went door to door making sure everyone was out, CBC reported.

Several hundred police officers, soldiers and firefighters have evacuated nearly 2,500 homes since Saturday night and other evacuations were continuing Sunday morning, said a spokesman for the Sûreté du Québec, the province's police force.

Québec authorities estimate that nearly 8,000 people have been evacuated in the past two weeks with nearly 6,000 homes flooded.

The capital Ottawa and Montréal – Québec's largest city of almost 2 million people – have both declared a state of emergency. The move will allow authorities to seize land if necessary, initiate mandatory evacuations and frees up funding.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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