At least four people lost their lives after devastating mudslides and landslides in the wake of a severe storm in B.C. in late October. Scientists say they could become more common.
One of them was Sonya McIntyre, 57, a beloved local elementary school teacher whose house was completely ripped from its foundation in a mudslide in the Quarry Road area. It took rescuers days to confirm that she had died.
Accompanied by geoscientists, Radio-Canada’s Camille Vernet went to the site where McIntyre’s house once stood to find wreckage and debris still standing there — along with a small memorial to the dead woman.
Scientists say that the frequency of atmospheric rivers, which brought hundreds of millimetres of rain to Coquitlam and caused the mudslides, is likely to increase as the world warms.
Geoscientists investigate what factors led part of a mountain to give way and knock a Coquitlam home off its foundation, killing 57-year-old teacher Sonya McIntyre. Experts are working with municipalities to assess and map areas in danger of more landslides as extreme rain from atmospheric rivers becomes more common due to climate change.
“If we have more frequent landslides, then the high-hazard zones will expand,” said Brett Eaton, a professor emeritus in the University of B.C.’s geography department.
“And it’s possible if we get larger landslides, that the low hazard zones … may expand as well.”
Eaton says that municipalities can mitigate against the hazard of mudslides by building structures that redirect or trap the sediment that comes down slopes away from human settlements.
“But the most important thing we can do is to modify our development plans to ensure that we are not increasing the risk. We are not putting more people in harm’s way,” he said.
A spokesperson for the City of Coquitlam in an emailed statement that the risks associated with climate change were currently being identified in the Metro Vancouver community.
