A man paddles a kayak through a flooded baseball diamond following a major rain event in Halifax on Saturday, July 22, 2023. Police are expected to provide an update today on the search for two young children who were swept away in weekend flooding in Nova Scotia. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
WINDSOR, N.S. – Nova Scotia RCMP say they have found the bodies of two children missing since Saturday when torrential floodwaters washed the vehicle they were in off a road.
In a news conference Tuesday, police said a child’s body was found in the morning, and they confirmed that human remains found Monday on a shoreline in a nearby county were those of the second missing child.
The children were travelling with three other people who managed to escape when the vehicle they were in was submerged in rushing waters deeper than a tractor-trailer.
Premier Tim Houston said the province’s grief is growing as the toll from the flooding mounts. On Monday, the RCMP had announced that the body of a 52-year-old man from Windsor, N.S. – who was in another, nearby vehicle – had been found.
“It’s another incredibly sad day in what’s now been a series of sad days in this province. The entire province is sick with mourning … The tragedy that’s happened here is really unimaginable,” Houston said.
Search teams are still looking for a fourth missing person, a youth under 18 who was travelling with the 52-year-old man.
Torrential rain over the weekend dumped up to 250 millimetres of water on several parts of the province, washing out roads and bridges and causing widespread damage.
RCMP Sgt. Rob Frizzell said the vehicles were “very close together” on the same rural route, fleeing their homes at around 4 a.m. on Saturday, when they were washed off the road by a storm surge.
“To put it in context, when we first came to the scene, there was also a semi truck that had been pushed off the road … and the water level, which is normally a hay field, was above the truck,” he said. “The sheer volume of that water would be quite significant.”
The police didn’t release the names or ages of the children, saying they were still being confirmed by the medical examiner’s office.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2023.
