1,000 homes evacuated in Quebec’s Laurentians region over fears dike could burst

MONTREAL – Residents of two municipalities in Quebec’s Laurentians region have been ordered to leave their homes because of the risk a nearby dike could burst.

The evacuation order was issued Sunday night for about 1,000 homes near the Kiamika River in the municipalities of Chute-St-Philippe and Lac-des-Ecorces.

The two towns are located about 15 kilometres from each other and roughly 125 kilometres northeast of Ottawa.

Authorities have told residents to leave their homes for five days.

Quebec’s Environment Department is inspecting the dike today.

The dike on the Kiamika Reservoir was built in 1954 and has the capacity to retain 382 million cubic metres of water, the equivalent of more than 100,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Feature image by iStock.com/Onfokus