Several buildings on Concordia's Loyola campus in NDG were evacuated for much of Wednesday afternoon because of a major gas leak.

Concordia University spokesperson Chris Mota told reporters it happened around lunchtime, while construction workers were digging on the campus.

"We're putting up a new building for our genomics operation, a new genomics centre," she said.

"Apparently during the construction operations, a natural gas line was cut."

About 500 students and staff were forced out of the university, and nearby homes were also evacuated.

Several second-year journalism students from Concordia were on hand and captured footage of the evacuation.

They are students in CTV Montreal reporter Caroline van Vlaardingen's intermediate TV class.

The students, including Kevin MacGraw, Laura Dolgy and Arndell Leblanc, captured firefighters arriving on the scene, and police officers cordoning off streets in the area, while Gaz Metropolitain employees worked on capping the leak.

About 3,000 area residents lost power until about 5 p.m.