(Abbotsford) Military personnel were deployed Thursday to western Canada, on land and in the air, to respond to extensive flooding and landslides that left one dead and many missing, while evacuees continue to be numbered by thousands.
“Members of the Royal Canadian Air Force have rescued more than 300 motorists and nearly 30 pets using three of our helicopters,” National Defense Minister Anita Anand said at a press conference Thursday. that this is the twelfth time since the start of the pandemic that the Canadian military has responded to natural disasters.
A total of 120 troops are to rally Abbotsford, about 70 kilometers southeast of Vancouver, and up to 350 could be deployed to lend a hand. Minister Anand clarified that “thousands” more are ready to step in when needed.
On Thursday, the three military helicopters flew over southwestern British Columbia to assess the extent of the damage and determine where aid is a priority. This emergency operation is supposed to last 30 days.
“With climate change, we must respond to more frequent and more intense internal emergencies”, leading to a “strong demand” for help from the army, said General Wayne Eyre, commander of the army.
Torrential rains that hit the province on Sunday and Monday caused landslides, destroying roads and infrastructure. They drowned entire cities under water, forcing the British Columbia government to declare a state of emergency on Wednesday, as it had already done in July due to massive forest fires.
In a few months, this region of the Canadian Pacific coast has suffered repeated natural disasters, including an episode of very intense heat at the end of June, a consequence of global warming according to experts.
Rescue workers were still looking for four missing persons in the Pemberton area, northeast of Vancouver, affected by a landslide as of Thursday. This is where a woman’s body was found.
“Research continues in the Pemberton landslide area. We are doing everything we can ”in complicated conditions, Chris Manseau, spokesperson for the federal police in British Columbia, in charge of relief, told AFP.
More rain
In Abbotsford, Mayor Henry Braun warned that his city was “far from being out of this situation”. “I’m not worried about the rain today. What worries me is next week. We expect between 80 and 100 mm ”of precipitation, he said.
Nearly 600 of the city’s 162,000 residents were evacuated, adding to hundreds more in the area in recent days.
In the streets of this largely deserted city, many people came Thursday to help the elderly or farmers in difficulty, noted an AFP journalist.
Bekky Meier, a local farmer and mother of five, told AFP that she quickly took steps to deal with the floods.
“I took my two youngest children to my parents on Monday, with suitcases and clothes for everyone. Then I made another trip with all the birth certificates, marriage certificates, photo albums, everything that is precious and that I am afraid of losing ”, she confided, hat on the head.
She and her husband own 250 dairy cows and found themselves stranded in their home without being able to evacuate once the roads were blocked. Friends then rescued them aboard a fishing boat.
“It was just scary knowing that I was leaving our house and that we could not come back knowing that our cattle were in danger,” she said with tears in her eyes, adding that her husband was finally able. return to the farm.
In this flooded area, many farmers have lost their animals, drowned by the waters in recent days.
Another point of concern in the region, the port of Vancouver, the largest in Canada, said it suffered “significant disruption to rail and road traffic” due to damage caused by the floods.
“This new disaster will lead to delays of two, three or four weeks”, analysis with AFP Jacques Roy, professor at HEC Montreal, who recalls that the supply chains are already weakened by the pandemic.
Across the border, footage also showed the towns of Bellingham and Ferndale underwater in Washington state in the United States.