Ten years since the tragedy | “3650 days later”, Lac-Mégantic remembers

Lights carried by walkers like so many little stars, silence: at a time when the rail tragedy struck 10 years ago, Lac-Mégantic remembered those who disappeared last night.

It was 1:14 a.m. when the silent march, bringing together several hundred people, set off from the forecourt of the Sainte-Agnès church, heading first to the site where the former Musi-Café was located, which has since become the ‘Memory space.

Earlier in the evening, the former mayor of Lac-Mégantic, Colette Roy-Laroche, had noted that we were “3650 days later”.

More than 3,600 days since a Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) train derailed and then exploded downtown on the night of July 6, 2013.

So many days spent without a brother, a daughter, friends, a mother, a cousin, a neighbor.

Élodie Turcotte, 28, walked in memory of her high school best friend, Bianca Turcotte. She was that evening at the Musi-Café.

“We were the two little Turcotte blondes in high school,” she recalled, before adding that she also walked for the other victims, including “a teacher, other friends, Mathieu, Éric”. His four children accompanied him. Little Wesley, one and a half years old, was fast asleep in his stroller.

Pierrette Turgeon Blanchet, a retired teacher, also evoked memories of high school. Many of his former students died on July 6, 2013.

“I was thinking of my students [en marchant]. To one in particular, who had struggled in high school, and who seemed to get by. She was with her boyfriend in a flat. She lives in me with lots of other people in my head and in my heart, ”explained the woman.

Coming from Drummondville and Montreal especially for the occasion, Gilles Morency and Gilles Roberge also took part in the march. Men watched the TV series Meganticbut also the documentary series, Lac-Mégantic: This is not an accident.

“We had seen the disaster, we discovered the human tragedy,” said Gilles Roberge.

Closing the march, which brought together a few hundred people, was Roger, a retired firefighter from Longueuil who preferred to keep his last name silent. A few days after the tragedy, he participated in the search at the scene of the tragedy with other colleagues. Since then, he comes to Lac-Mégantic every year on this date. He revisits the places that marked him in memory of the victims.

“It’s the least I can do,” he said.

The commemorations in memory of the 47 victims of the tragedy continue Thursday, in Lac-Mégantic. A memorial mass will be held at 11 a.m. Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and François Legault are expected.