Canada | Floods trap people on highways in British Columbia, prompt evacuations

An “atmospheric river” caused major flooding, trapping people on highways and prompting evacuations in Canada’s British Columbia.

The rainstorms that started on Sunday triggered landslides, shutting roads, prompting the evacuation of an entire town, forcing an oil pipeline to close, and delayed flights.

Canadian helicopters carried out several rescue operations on Monday to rescue hundreds of people trapped in their vehicles on a highway.

About 275 people including 50 children were stranded, some 100 vehicles near the mountain town of Agassiz about 120 km (75 miles) east of Vancouver, which prompted evacuation flights.

Video footage on social media showed a house floating down an overflowing river before falling apart on a bridge, inundated bridges and highways, and cars that were partially submerged by the flooding near Vancouver.

Authorities in Merritt, some 200 kilometers northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 8,000 citizens to leave after rising waters cut off bridges and forced the wastewater treatment plant to close.

“Continued habitation of the community without sanitary services presents risk of mass sewage back-up and personal health risk,” the city said in an official notice.

Some areas received 8 inches (200 mm) of rain on Sunday – the amount they usually see in a month – and the deluge continued on Monday, with roads covered by mud or up to 10 inches of water.

The landslides and floods come less than six months after an out-of-control wildfire gutted an entire town, as temperatures in the province soared.

The storms forced the closure of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which takes crude from Alberta to the Pacific Coast. The line has a capacity of 300,000 barrels per day.

Work on a proposed expansion project has also been halted, the operating company said.

Around 18 miles further east, footage posted to Facebook showed parts of a road had been washed away near the town of Hope.

“The situation is dynamic … it is very difficult weather,” provincial public safety minister Mike Farnworth told reporters.

Gales are due to hit the area later, most likely causing power outages, officials said.

The storm is the second weather-related calamity to hit the Pacific province in just a few months.