Pictures: Toronto hit by flash floods after heavy rain

Around 300,000 people have been affected by flash floods in Toronto that have caused widespread power cuts and traffic chaos. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Electricity company Toronto Hydro said about 35,000 of its customers were without electricity, mostly in the west end of the city.

According to CBC, a heavy downpour was forecast but the rain was "unprecedented", with 126mm falling across the Canadian city.

Subways have reportedly shut down and some people were forced to cling to trees, with about 1,400 passengers stranded for hours on a commuter train filled with water.

Associated Press reports that some parts of the city had received around 3.9 inches of rain in the Monday evening storm, beating the previous one-day rainfall record of 1.4 inches.

Police and firefighters used small inflatable boats to rescue commuters from a double-decker commuter train that saw floodwaters reach the lower windows.

Five or six people were treated for minor injuries but no-one was hospitalised.

The public transit service said on Tuesday that the storm had left parts of the track "completely under water" on several lines and that the extent of the damage was not yet known.

All of Toronto's subway service was stopped due to power and signal issues and some stations were flooded.

On the roads there were abandoned vehicles, some filled with water up to their windows. One woman wearing a T-shirt and shorts dived head-first through the window of her car before wading away in the thigh-deep currents.

Flights out of the downtown airport were cancelled due to power cuts in the terminal on Monday evening.

The flash floods come two weeks after flooding in Calgary turned parts of the western Canadian city into a lake and forced 100,000 residents in Alberta from their homes.

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