(Halifax) The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) of Nova Scotia believe they have found the vehicle in which the two children were missing since Saturday following the passage of torrential rains which caused major flooding in the province. However, the authorities are still without news of the two young people and two other people who are also missing.
In a statement released on Sunday afternoon, the police force announced that “underwater searches in a flooded field” carried out on Saturday evening made it possible to “locate an unoccupied van which is believed to be the vehicle in which the children were.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Corporal Guillaume Tremblay, spokesperson for the RCMP, said the van was under two meters of water when it was found. Research continues, but is complex.
“We are talking about flood waters in which there is no visibility, which makes searches difficult when divers have to search using touch,” explained Corporal Tremblay.
“We are continuing our research and we must not lose hope,” he said.
On Saturday, the two children were with three other people in a van in West Hants – a largely rural town northwest of Halifax – when the vehicle became stuck underwater. The other three occupants on board managed to escape, but the two children were not so lucky.
Also at West Hants, but in a separate incident, two other people, a youth and a man, were also missing when their vehicle became submerged. In this second vehicle, two other passengers were rescued, but no other discoveries had been made on Sunday.
“The search is continuing in the same area to find the four people and the second vehicle,” assured the RCMP. Teams from the province’s Department of Natural Resources and Renewable Energy, as well as ground search and rescue teams from West Hants, Colchester and Valley, are assisting in the operations.
The ages and identities of the missing persons have not been released, nor have the reasons for why they were unable to extricate themselves from the two submerged vehicles like the others on board.
RCMP are still asking the public not to travel to the West Hants area to search for the missing, “as the current conditions are unsafe and could hamper search efforts.”
“Industrial pumping equipment is mobilized, with the help of civilian companies, to lower the water level in the search area,” the federal police force said.
Good weather ahead
Torrential rains that began Friday afternoon in the Halifax area caused major flooding, road closures and power outages across much of the province.
Environment Canada estimates that the system dumped between 200 and 250 millimeters of rain along the southern shore of the province, in the Halifax area and in central and western Nova Scotia.
Provincial Premier Tim Houston declared a state of emergency on Saturday, which will remain in effect until Aug. 5 unless the government ends or extends it.
According to Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Robichaud, once the system leaves the province, the weather could remain good for a few days.
“We should have at least four days with little or no precipitation,” he said. But it’s probably going to take several days for all that water to get to the ocean. There are still lakes and rivers where the water level could rise in the next few hours, until everything descends into the ocean by Monday. »
The weather system was expected to cross Cape Breton and leave the province by midday Sunday after inundating the island and eastern Nova Scotia with about 175 millimeters of rain.
This dispatch was produced with financial assistance from the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for News.