More than one million people in Quebec are beginning their second week without power, as Canada struggles to recover from devastating ice storms.

Authorities are urging those still living in homes without heating to move out before an expected wave of bitterly cold temperatures.

Relief efforts in the aftermath of last week's paralysing ice storm are focused on an area south and west of Montreal dubbed the "Blackout Triangle."

About 400,000 households in the region face another week, perhaps two, without electricity because dozens of metal transmission towers were toppled by heavy ice.

Emergency services stretched

At the peak of the storm on Friday, about 3 million people were without power in eastern Ontario and southern Quebec.

Grim forecast

Quebec's Premier, Lucien Bouchard, has made an emotional televised appeal for families to find warmer quarters.

"People do not want to leave their homes. It's an instinctive reaction." he said.

He promised that police, plus some of the 11,200 soldiers deployed in Canada's largest-ever peacetime military operation, would provide the best possible protection for evacuated homes.

The weather service has grim news for those trying to hang on in unheated homes.

Temperatures around Montreal are expected to drop to -15 C, the coldest yet since the freezing rain began to fall on January 5.

At the request of the provincial power company, most schools and businesses have again stayed closed.

Dangerous heating

Police and soldiers are trudging door-to-door in residential neighbourhoods, checking to see if residents of unheated buildings should be ordered to shelters.

"In one place, they found people had put a roll of toilet paper in a metal can, soaked it in flammable material and set it on fire," said Montreal police spokesman Serge Meloche.

"There are also people who park their vehicles in a garage, start their engines so they can warm themselves up from time to time. But the carbon monoxide emissions are dangerous."

Shelters may be home for a fortnight

The storm has been blamed for at least 15 deaths and has caused damage estimated at more than US$350m.

The Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, conferred with key Cabinet ministers on Monday on responses to the disaster, then made a radio address aimed at the victims.

"Everything that is humanly possible is being done to restore order to your daily lives," he said. "You are not alone and you will not be alone as long as you are in need."

Aid has been pouring in to the stricken region from across Canada and from the United States.

Truckloads of cots arrived from Richmond, Virginia, and businessmen in a northern Quebec region hit by floods two years ago sent loads of firewood to the "Blackout Triangle."

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