Two bodies were found near Notre-Dame Street, in Rivière-Éternité, Saguenay, at the end of the day on Tuesday. The Sûreté du Québec will wait for their formal identification before announcing that it is indeed the man and the woman who disappeared after being swept away in a landslide at this location on Saturday.
The Sûreté du Québec announced in the evening Tuesday that two bodies had been located by divers around 6:30 p.m.
“The research was carried out near the place where a landslide took place which had carried away three people on rue Notre-Dame in Rivière-Éternité, on the 1er last July, ”said Sergeant Audrey-Anne Bilodeau, spokesperson for the SQ, in a press release.
The bodies were also found near the site of the landslide.
The identity of the two bodies has not been confirmed, but everything suggests that they would be the man and the woman who were missing. “We will have to wait for the formal identification of the victims to the satisfaction of the coroner before confirming their identity,” explains Sergeant Bilodeau.
One of the two people sought was Pascale Racine, a resident of the Quebec region who was passing through the region. She had gotten out of her vehicle to clear debris from the road before it caved in. According to the latest information, her spouse Jean-Philippe Caty is still in hospital treating injuries that allegedly occurred while trying to save Mme Root.
No information on the other man swept away by the landslide has been released. Like Pascale Racine, the man is not a resident of the region, according to the authorities.
Work in progress on Route 170
The authorities still do not have a deadline to give for the reopening of Route 170 and Notre-Dame Street, which were both devastated following heavy rains last Saturday in the municipality of Rivière-Éternité, in Saguenay.
“The priority remains to provide access to Route 170. We are in recovery mode,” said Denis Demers, geotechnical engineer at the Quebec Ministry of Transport, during a press briefing on the state of the situation.
The teams are hard at work to restore traffic on the roads of the Saguenay municipality.
The major works consist of creating a bypass road for emergency vehicles. “We plan to make it passable by the end of the day,” said Mario Goudreau, from the Ministère des Transports. He said work to make the road accessible to motorists will take several days.
Efforts are being made to install a temporary culvert on Route 170 to divert the water. Mr. Goudreau specifies that the operation will take several days. “A 12-metre culvert is a project that usually takes months. We are currently trying to do it in a few days, ”he said, adding that this is a major challenge.
As for rue Notre-Dame, where the two people were swept away by landslides, temporary work is underway to reopen it.
“We will have to remove the debris and then build concrete block walls, since there are still portions around the scars caused by the landslides that are still unstable,” explained Denis Demers. This is a steep region, so it’s not impossible that some debris will be rolling down the road in the next few days.
“The blocks will provide a lane of traffic so people can return to isolated campsites to collect their belongings and belongings. »
Rapid accumulation
According to the latest data, 130 mm of water fell on the municipality in less than two hours on Saturday afternoon. The heaviest part of this storm poured over Highway 170, which explains why the damage was concentrated along this road.
“The rain fell so quickly that the water accumulated on the ground,” says Denis Demers. There was also a swelling of the rivers which turned into torrents before overflowing. It was so strong that the water accumulated in places where there were no water troughs, which devastated certain terrains,” explains the engineer.
Most of the private land affected has fallen victim to the phenomenon of aggradation, that is to say an accumulation of sediments and debris transported by water on a land.