Key takeaways:
- Soil specialist Denis Demers states evacuees would be dead if they hadn’t left the place.
- Geotechnical engineer Denis Demers, Saguenay Mayor Julie Dufour, and the director of the city’s fire services, Carol Girard, spoke to the media regarding the dangers of future landslides.
The landslide that destroyed a home and damaged another in Saguenay, Que., on June 13 was the impact of a heavy downpour on an already flawed clay terrain, professionals from Quebec’s Ministry of Transport have specified.
“A landslide of this volume in these situations it’s an exceptional event,” stated geotechnical engineer and soil specialist Denis Demers, who works for the ministry.
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The slide has forced government officials to publish an evacuation mandate for some 76 homes in La Baie borough in Saguenay, a city approximately 240 kilometers north of Quebec City, due to the high chance of further slides in the area.
Demers demonstrated that while nearly 60 percent of landslides in Quebec occur in the spring when there is a lot of rain and water seeps into the ground, they usually happen in places where there is a creek or a river
Source – cbc.ca.
