Police find 2 bodies at site of Quebec landslide

Quebec provincial police say two bodies have been recovered near the site of a devastating landslide last weekend in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region. 

Sûreté du Québec (SQ) divers located the two bodies at the scene around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. 

While the bodies have not yet been formally identified, police said in a news release, "There is every reason to believe that they are the man and woman who were still missing."

The discovery comes after rescue crews searched for a fourth day for a man and a woman in their 40s who were swept away during an intense rainfall on Saturday in Rivière-Éternité, a town 260 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.

Landslides in the area were triggered by what officials described as a "phenomenal amount" of rainfall, resulting in washed-out roads, including one that leads to a park at a provincial campground. Provincial police evacuated by helicopter 94 people staying at the campground, while another 133 people were taken by boat to nearby La Baie.

About 130 millimetres of rain fell in the span of about two hours, causing the river to swell about four times its normal size.

"What we understand of the event is that there was a first small landslide and people got out of the vehicle to clear the debris on the road," said Denis Demers, an engineer and expert on land movements, during a technical briefing on Tuesday. "That's when the biggest part of the landslide happened, pushing them toward the Éternité River, which was a real torrent.”

Demers said one man managed to cling to a tree and was rescued. But a woman was swept toward the river, and she and another man remain missing. Police have not identified the two missing people but have said they were local residents.

The river's twists and turns, as well as the debris and hot weather, complicated the search for the missing people, with police and volunteers in the air, on foot and in boats.

Meanwhile, the transport ministry said it was trying to create a bypass around a collapsed section of the highway that runs through the town. An official with the ministry said the road repairs will likely take weeks.

With files from CTV News Montreal's Max Harrold and The Canadian Press