Emergency officials are expected to provide an update on Thursday morning on the massive landslide blocking the Chilcotin River and prompting the evacuation of dozens of properties.
The update will be provided at 11 a.m.
Rocks, mud and clay are blocking the major tributary to the Fraser River after a landslide came down overnight Tuesday about 60 kilometres from Williams Lake.
An evacuation order is in place for 60 properties, including 12 homes.
A flood warning, flood watch and high streamflow advisory are also in effect.
Officials say the river is blocked and there is an imminent flooding risk.
“Water has been backing up behind the landslide,” Bowinn Ma, B.C.’s minister of emergency management and climate readiness, said.
“At this time it is only growing.”
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One person was hurt in the slide and was airlifted to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Evacuees were told to head north to Highway 20 and go to Williams Lake.
Loren Doerkson, MLA for the Cariboo-Chilcotin, said in an update posted to X that the debris slide is massive. It is about 30 metres deep and 600 metres long.
The Cariboo Regional District said the high risk of flash flooding poses a dangerous threat to people above and below the slide areas and that a breach could send debris travelling down to Hope and beyond.
The Thompson Nicola Valley Regional District is stopping ferries at Lytton and Big Bar due to the slide.
The Chilcotin River is a major tributary to the Fraser River and supports populations of early-timed chinook, early-summer sockeye, summer-run sockeye, interior Fraser coho and steelhead, several of which are stocks of conservation concern, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
“Adult Chinook and Sockeye salmon are currently present in the Chilcotin River and likely to be affected by this blockage,” the organization said in a statement.
“At this point in time this site is not safe to access and it is too early to state with certainty what measures may be required or possible.”
More to come.
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