Heavy rains in BC caused flooding and landslides in the province. Thousands of people were evacuated.
Le Monde with AFP
Thousands of evacuees and without electricity, hundreds more trapped in their vehicle, pipeline stopped: Torrential rains caused floods and landslides, paralyzing Monday, 15 November several towns in the British Columbia, in western Canada.
“After heavy rains, mudslides and floods hit various roads within the British Columbia land,” tweeted the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure of the Province on the night of Sunday to Monday.
Several highways there were indeed closed in areas already affected this summer by major forest fires. Tens of thousands of people were affected across the province by power cuts, according to the company BC Hydro.
In the evening, emergency services reported having carried the day in the evening nine patients with minor injuries following a landslide in this area.
“From 80 to 100 vehicles” were also blocked since last night by landslides on a highway near Agassiz, a hundred kilometers east of Vancouver, authorities said, during a press briefing in the morning. Rescue teams, firefighters and police are deployed to help.
Canadian forces sent helicopters to rescue these motorists, about 275 people were stranded in their vehicles, including fifty children, according to local media.
Thousands of evacuations
Images relayed by local authorities showed raw Similkameen River in southern British Columbia. Others showed the city of Merritt, inundated by the flood of the Coldwater River. The approximately 7000 inhabitants of this city located 300 km northeast of Vancouver were ordered to evacuate to emergency centers in the morning and then been banned from returning to Merritt after flooding plant wastewater treatment. Two bridges were also flooded.
“To the people of Merritt, British Columbians affected by floods: be cautious,” asked the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Twitter in the afternoon. “We will be here to provide you the necessary support to help you cope with the floods and extreme conditions and you recover,” he promised.
In addition, these storms have led to the closure of the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline, which was nationalized by the Trudeau government in 2018. The pipeline was arrested “as a precaution” confirmed the company Agence France-Presse, because of “widespread flooding and mudslides carrying debris in the Hope area”, 150 km east of Vancouver.
The expansion of the pipeline, due to come into by the end of 2022 services were also interrupted in the regions of “Lower Mainland, Hope and Merritt due to prolonged heavy rain.” These aim to increase from 300 000 to 890 000 barrels per day capacity of this pipeline that carries oil from the Alberta tar sands, the heart of Canada’s oil industry, to the suburbs of Vancouver.
A little west of Agassiz, the City of Abbotsford issued an evacuation order for more than one hundred homes after these storms. “In only one hundred forty days Abbotsford recorded its hottest day history (42.9 ° C) and now, the most humid day of history (100.4 mm)”, observed on Twitter Tyler Hamilton meteorologist native the region.