The B.C. government is set to provide an update on Monday afternoon on the Chilcotin River landslide.
Bowinn Ma, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, and Nathan Cullen, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, will be joined by government technical staff to provide an update at 2 p.m.
That will be broadcast live on BC1 and in the post above.
Videos taken on Monday morning at the site of the dam show water flowing over the top of the site.
A BC Emergency alert has been issued to cellphones, radio and television to advise people in the area on or along the riverbanks of the Chilcotin River from Hanceville to the Fraser River, and the Fraser River from the Chilcotin River to the Gang Ranch Road bridge, to evacuate immediately due to flooding and debris flow.
B.C. officials had issued an evacuation order Sunday night for an area just north of where the Chilcotin River meets the Fraser River because of the danger of flooding caused by the landslide.
In a news release late Sunday, officials with the Cariboo Regional District told residents to leave “immediately” and said people who chose to stay did so at their own risk. The evacuation order covered 3.5 square kilometres.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
The massive landslide last week at Farwell Canyon located about 22 kilometres south of Williams Lake dammed the Chilcotin River and created a lake about 11 kilometres long behind the slide.
The Tsilhqot’in First Nation said that as of Sunday morning, the slide was holding back 61 million cubic meters of water, equalling “24,400 Olympic swimming pools.”
-with files from The Canadian Press
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
