A landslide along the Chilcotin River near Williams Lake, B.C. is shown in this Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024 handout photo. The chief of Williams Lake First Nation says a landslide of debris that has dammed the Chilcotin River in British Columbia's central Interior has nearly doubled in size since Wednesday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Chief Willie Sellars *MANDATORY CREDIT *
WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. – British Columbia’s minister of emergency management says current modelling shows water from a vast lake forming behind a landslide damming the Chilcotin River is more likely to go over the top than burst through in a sudden release.
Bowinn Ma says the impacts downstream could still be significant depending on the distribution of the overtopping flow, and people along the Chilcotin and the connecting Fraser River may need to leave the area.
The minister says there’s no timeline on when the water start flowing, and overtopping is not the only scenario officials are planning for.
Ma says it would take 12 to 24 hours for water and debris from the dam to reach Hope, B.C., about 500 kilometres south of the massive landslide.
The lake behind the dam has grown to 11 kilometres long, and a new estimate of the size of the blockage is about 1,000 metres along the river.
The slide came down early Wednesday, blocking the Chilcotin, which is a tributary of the Fraser River that flows all the way down to Metro Vancouver into the ocean.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2024.
