Water begins spilling over landslide damming Chilcotin River
CBC
Water has begun spilling over the landslide blocking the Chilcotin River, officials said Monday morning.
Gerald Pinchbeck with the Cariboo Regional District Emergency Operations Centre told CBC News that water began moving over the dam around 9 a.m. PT.
Officials are expecting a pulse of water to carry fallen trees, organic matter and debris down the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers. Water levels along the Chilcotin River are expected to rise far above the spring melt, while water levels along the Fraser River are expected be below spring levels.
Evacuation orders are in place along parts of the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers and people are being urged to stay away from the banks of both waterways.
On Sunday night, the Cariboo Regional District issued three new evacuation orders along the Fraser River. One covers about 9.6 square kilometres along the Fraser River, just south of where it meets the Chilcotin River. A second order covers 3.5 square kilomtres along the Fraser River just north of that confluence, upstream.
"Once the water hits the Fraser River from the Chilcotin River, it'll go where it can," Pinchbeck said. "If there's enough water coming down, it will go upstream and also it will eventually flow downstream."
A third evacuation order covers 1.5 square kilometres along the Fraser River, about 25 kilometres south of where the two rivers meet. It includes the Gang Ranch Suspension Bridge.
Evacuation orders also remain in place for about 100 square kilometres of land along the Chilcotin River, both upstream and downstream from where the landslide happened near Farwell Canyon.
In total, evacuation orders stretch from near Hanceville, B.C., to where the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers meet.
B.C.'s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship could not be immediately reached for comment.
In a news release Sunday, the ministry said peak flows along the Chilcotin River could be more than 10 times greater than typical levels after the spring melt.
It estimates the river could rise by 21 metres at the Farwell Canyon bridge, close to the site of the landslide, about 285 kilometres north of Vancouver. Peak flow could take up to 13 hours to reach Lillooet.
In a post to social media, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen confirmed water has moved past the landslide.
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