Quebec police announced on Wednesday May 3 that they had found two bodies in the search area where two firefighters disappeared, swept away by the waves during a flood-related rescue operation this week.
The two volunteer firefighters, Christopher Lavoie, 23, and Régis Lavoie, 55, who are not related, were helping to evacuate residents near Baie-Saint-Paul, about 100 kilometers north of the Quebec City, when they disappeared on Monday afternoon.
Shortly before 10:00 a.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT) on Wednesday, a helicopter
"located a body"
, a spokesman for the Sûreté du Québec, Sergeant Stéphane Tremblay, told AFP.
"We do not have formal identification yet (...) but everything indicates that it is one of the two people who have been missing since Monday
," he said.
Later in the day, the Sûreté du Québec announced that they had found a second body, about 500 meters from where the first was found.
“Around 1:30 p.m., there is a second body which was also located by the Sûreté du Québec helicopter
,” said Sergeant Béatrice Dorsainville.
“We lost two men, two volunteer firefighters. It's immensely sad
,” reacted the Premier of Quebec François Legault, on Facebook, after going there.
Torrential rains following spring snowmelt triggered emergency flood alerts across the province this week.
In total, 105 municipalities have deployed emergency measures and more than 600 residences have been affected or flooded, according to the latest update of the site of the Ministry of Public Security.