2023-08-19 22:17:38
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Faced with the fires, 30,000 people evacuated in Canada
Western Canada faces fires of rare intensity 30,000 people had to be evacuated in the province of British Columbia.
PostedAugust 20, 2023, 12:17 AM
British Columbia, faced with blazes, had to declare a state of emergency on Friday.
Some 30,000 people had to be evacuated to western Canada, where firefighters continued Saturday to fight fires of rare intensity, which will leave “a lasting scar”.
“The situation is very changing and the numbers are constantly changing, but at this stage around 30,000 people are under evacuation orders and an additional 36,000 have been placed on alert for possible evacuation,” he said. said Bowinn Ma, emergency manager for the western province of British Columbia.
“We insist on the absolute importance of immediately following evacuation orders,” she said at a press conference. “It is a matter of life or death for the people who are in these properties, but also for the relief workers who are sometimes forced to come back and ask people to leave”.
“You don’t have to be there”
British Columbia Premier David Eby gave slightly different figures: 35,000 people ordered to evacuate and 30,000 more people told to prepare to evacuate if necessary. “Please stay out of these areas if you don’t need to be there,” David Eby said.
At least 19,000 people have been evacuated from Yellowknife in the past 48 hours, almost the entire city, Shane Thompson, Minister of Environment for the Northwest Territories, said Friday evening.
Very isolated region
A total of 15,000 people fled by road, 3,800 were evacuated by air, mainly to Calgary, while at least 300 firefighters were mobilized to fight the flames, he added. one of the most important devices known to this very isolated region of the Canadian Far North.
“It was really awful. I mightn’t believe it,” said Martha Kanatsiak, 59, a Yellowknife resident for more than 20 years who arrived in Calgary late Friday. “I’m fine but I’m sad, depressed and worried. I’ve never seen anything like it,” added the Inuit retiree, who only brought two small bags with her.
The City of Calgary has made 495 hotel rooms available for evacuees, officials said. The fires are located Saturday 15 km from Yellowknife but winds from the northwest might push the flames near the city limits, according to Canadian authorities.
thick smoke
The local University of British Columbia campus, which hosts more than 11,000 students, was placed under evacuation orders on Friday evening and the airspace in the area was closed to help the efforts of the firefighting aircraft.
The situation is also critical on the other side of Lake Okanagan, in West Kelowna (more than 30,000 inhabitants) where “a significant number” of houses burned down, according to authorities. Several thousand evacuations have also taken place in the state of Washington in the United States, neighboring British Columbia, where a fire broke out on Friday near the city of Spokane, according to local press. Authorities have confirmed one death.
(AFP)Show comments
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