British Columbia sees death toll rising from massive flood

Abbotsford, Nov. 18 (BNA): The death toll is set to rise from massive floods and landslides that have devastated parts of British Columbia, as the Canadian province declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and the federal government promised significant help.

Authorities confirmed one death after torrential rains and mudslides destroyed roads and left several mountainous towns isolated. At least three people are missing. Canada’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said about 18,000 people have been displaced in the Pacific Coast province.

“We expect more deaths to be confirmed in the coming days,” British Columbia Prime Minister John Horgan said, describing the disaster as a once-in-500-year event.

“We will impose travel restrictions and ensure that transportation of essential goods, medical services and emergency services are able to reach the communities that need them,” Horgan said at a news conference, urging people not to stockpile supplies.

Floods and mudslides have also cut off access to the nation’s largest port in Vancouver, disrupting already strained global supply chains.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would help the province recover from what he described as a “horrible, terrible disaster”.

Trudeau told reporters in Washington ahead of Thursday’s US-Canada-Mexico summit that Ottawa will send hundreds of Air Force personnel to aid recovery and “there are thousands more on standby.”

Some of the affected cities are located in remote mountainous regions with limited access and freezing temperatures.

As many as 400 people are trapped in Tullamine, northeast of Vancouver, many without power, said Eric Thompson, a spokesman for emergency operations for the area.

“(We) did a helicopter flight recently, and they dropped food,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

In Hope, 100 miles (160 km) east of Vancouver, food is starting to run out. Reverend Jeff Kohn said a quarter of the town’s 6,000 residents were looking for shelter.

Narinder Singh Walia, head of the temple, said that about 100 volunteers at the Dukh Nivaran Sahib Gurdwara in Sri Lanka spent Tuesday night preparing about 3,000 meals and then hired helicopters to deliver food to Hope.

The disaster may be one of the most expensive in Canadian history.

The floods are the second weather-related disaster to hit British Columbia in the past few months. A massive wildfire in the same area where some destruction devastated an entire city in late June.

“These are extraordinary events that have not been measured before, and have not been thought of before,” Horgan said.

Canadian exporters of commodities from grain to fertilizer and oil scrambled to divert shipments away from Vancouver but found few easy alternatives.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd and Canadian National Railway Co, the country’s two largest rail companies, said their lines to Vancouver remained unusable on Wednesday.

After a phenomenon known as an atmospheric river flooded the equivalent of a month of rain in two days, officials are concerned that another torrential rain could flood a pumping station near Abbotsford, a city of 160,000 people east of Vancouver, which has already been partially evacuated. .

Mayor Henry Brown said volunteers built a dam around the station overnight.

“This will give us more time, but if we have another weather event like we experienced, we are in deep (problem),” he told reporters.

Abbotsford farmers ignored an evacuation order on Tuesday and tried hard to save the animals from rising waters, in some cases tying ropes around the cows’ necks and dragging them to higher ground.

Provincial Agriculture Secretary Lana Popham said thousands of animals had died and more animals had to be killed mercifully.

Environment Canada said Abbotsford will receive more rain early next week.

Lifeguard Mike Danks, who is part of the evacuation team in Abbotsford, said the situation had been very difficult.

“The majority of people have elderly parents with them who are unable to walk, and suffer from dementia,” he told local Black Press Media.

MI