Rankin Inlet wind turbine loses its blades

A wind turbine in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, suffered a catastrophic failure last week when its blades snapped off.

One of the broken blades remains attached to the tower. Debris from the blades is on the ground around the turbine.

Officials with Qulliq Energy Corporation aren't sure what caused the damage, or if it will be repaired.

"Materials that are there right now are not reclaimable," said George Hickes, manager of communications with the Qulliq Energy Corporation.

"What we're going to basically do is clean up the site and if we can find out at the point what determined the failure we will do so at the same time. We're not going to spend a lot of dollars into the research of what went wrong."

The single windmill was installed in 2000 as a pilot project. Similar wind turbines were installed in Cambridge Bay and Kugluktuk in the 1990s, none of whichis still functioning.