Emergency officials said the massive landslide that is blocking the Chilcotin River, in B.C.’s central interior, prompting the evacuation of dozens of properties, is expected to cause flash flooding downstream when the river breaches the slide area.
Margo Wagner, chair of the Cariboo Regional District, said in an update on Thursday morning that the timeline of the breach is unknown but that a breach is expected.
“We don’t know exactly when this landslide is going to give way,” she said, “but we have heard it could be between the next 24 to 48 hours.”
Wagner added that the water will either rise above the top of the debris pile and flow over the top or it will cause a fissure to form through the debris field and eventually break through.
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. Wagner said the slide occurred in a burned area from a 2017 wildfire that roared through the area.
An evacuation order is in place for 60 properties, including 13 homes.
A flood warning, flood watch and high streamflow advisory are also in effect.
“Water has been backing up behind the landslide,” Bowinn Ma, B.C.’s minister of emergency management and climate readiness, said.
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“At this time it is only growing.”
Ma confirmed on Thursday that the province is coordinating with impacted communities and helicopters have been dispatched to help with technical assessments.
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.
Everyone is ordered to stay off the Chilcotin River from Hanceville to the Fraser River and the Fraser River from the Chilcotin Area to Hope.
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.”
Wagner said the slide will affect the salmon run this year.
There are also a number of First Nations historical sites along the river and the Cariboo Regional District said it is in constant contact with the Tŝilhqot’in First Nation where the slide occurred.
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