No injuries after wind rips siding off downtown Yellowknife building

The property manager for Yellowknife's Bellancabuilding saysit was wind gusts that caused a large portion of siding to fall off the downtown buildingWednesday morning.

The 10-storey Bellancabuildingformerly home to federal government offices before devolution, but currently sitting empty had about half of the siding on one side ripped off. By business hours on Wednesday morning, much of it lay in a parking lot below.

Darin Benoit, a property manager for McCORManagement who is responsible for the building, says the siding fell at about 7 a.m. local time due to a "wind storm."By 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, the area had been cordoned off.

Benoit says there was "no personal injury, no personal property damage to anybody," and that his team is waiting for the site to be deemed safe before they begin clean-up of the debris.

"We're working with consultants, engineers, and construction workers, contractors to basically ensure this doesn't happen again," said Benoit.

Benoit said the team plans to have the debris cleaned up by end ofday Wednesday, and by Thursday at the latest. He said the siding was installed on the building in 2008, and that the building is inspected daily by members of his team.

According to Environment Canada's website, wind gusted intermittently overnight and in the morning hours, beginning at about 7 a.m., though only to a maximum of 43 km/h, far less than in recent days.

Two weeks ago, winds gusting to 70 km/hresultedin the toppling of a sacred Denetreein Yellowknife.

• Sacred Dene tree in Yellowknife downed during high winds
• A tree falls, a legend is born: Dene woman believes baby shares connection to sacred tree

With files from Randi Beers, Mark Hadlari