A man and a woman in their forties, who are not from Rivière-Éternité, are still missing since the collapse of a road on Saturday in the Saguenéenne municipality. Their identity has not yet been revealed.
The search resumed early Monday morning to find them with two helicopters, nautical teams and several walkers, joined by about twenty members of the Quebec Association of Search and Rescue Volunteers who crisscross the sector.
Divers from the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) are also on site, but first to carry out seabed surveys.
“The research is progressing, but it’s not easy,” said Sergeant Hugues Beaulieu, of the SQ, in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“The river is three times its natural flow. There is a lot of debris that was left behind by the landslides. It complicates the job. »
Three people had been swept away by the collapse of Notre-Dame Street, which leads to Fjord-du-Saguenay National Park, but one of them, a forty-year-old, was rescued and is still in hospital. .
Evacuations
The SQ had to evacuate by helicopter, on Sunday, 94 people who were at the campsite of the Society of Outdoor Establishments of Quebec (SEPAQ), in the Parc du Fjord-du-Saguenay, isolated by the subsidence from Notre Dame Street. A hundred other people had been evacuated by sea.
About fifty residents of Rivière-Éternité were also evacuated due to floods that crossed the municipality and washed away a portion of Route 170. The neighboring municipalities of L’Anse-Saint-Jean and Saint-Félix- of Otis have set up service centers to receive the victims.
Route 170, which crosses the municipality, has been badly damaged and requires urgent work by the Ministry of Transport. “There is going to be a way [de contournement] that we are trying to make passable for emergency vehicles first. We are talking about a path of 800 meters to 1 kilometer. We aim to give it by tomorrow, Tuesday, at the end of the day, ”explained Mario Goudreau, of the Ministry of Transport, during a press briefing by municipal authorities at the start of the afternoon on Monday.
The road is cut off where there is a culvert, the depth of which reaches 12 meters, he said. “We’re not talking about a small culvert with a small backfill. It really is a very deep fill. That’s where the delay comes from. »
No timeline for return
As for the evacuated residents, they will have to be patient, warned Mayor Rémi Gagné, who said he has no timeline for their reinstatement at this time.
“There is a lot of work to do. Check if the ground is good. We don’t have a sewage system, only septic tanks. It is necessary to check if these septic tanks are compliant and do not cause pollution. He has all the septic tanks of all the residents checked,” he explained.
“You have to check the houses too because there was water, mud in the houses and in the basements. We must at least give them drinking water because currently they do not have drinking water in the evacuated sector,” continued the mayor.
Some citizens have chosen to stay at home, but must be wary of the quality of the water, which they are asked to boil.
According to Environment Canada, Rivière-Éternité received 130 mm of rain in two hours on Saturday.
SEPAQ has announced that the Baie-Éternité sector of Parc national du Fjord-du-Saguenay is closed until further notice and that customers with reservations in the coming days will be contacted to postpone their stay or obtain reimbursement.