Residents along the Chilcotin River in the Cariboo region of British Columbia can now return home after an evacuation order issued after a landslide blocked the waterway for days was lifted.
The Cariboo Regional District issued an evacuation order for 34 properties along the river on July 31 due to the landslide and declared a local state of emergency.
The evacuation order affected a section of the river that was about 30 kilometers long and almost 73 square kilometers in size.
The district said the order had been downgraded to an evacuation warning, but warned residents not to participate in monitoring activities as landslide and river assessments in the area were still ongoing.
The district also asks people to watch out for further landslides and floods.
Water and debris rushed down the Fraser River on Tuesday after water breached a natural dam created by a landslide upstream in the Chilcotin River. Yasmine Ghania reports that several emergency warnings have been issued and debris is expected to reach the Lower Mainland by Tuesday night.
British Columbia’s Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Preparedness said in a press conference on Tuesday that the impacts of the Chilcotin River landslide remain a concern.
Bowinn Ma said the province is monitoring salmon stocks as the fish swim up the Fraser River and into the Chilcotin, and is monitoring the banks of both rivers to ensure that further declines in stocks do not create new problems for fish migration.
