Floodwaters cut the railway line to the port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest port | Flood News
Heavy rains have forced people to evacuate British Columbia and have caused power outages in the U.S. government in Washington.
Floods and landslides have blocked all railways to the port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest port, as the western part of British Columbia suffers. stormy rain which has blocked roads and blocked riders for days.
Harbor officials announced Tuesday that the floods had caused the closure of railways run by two major Canadian companies – the Canadian Pacific Rail and the Canadian National Railway.
A spokesman for the port of Matti Polychronis said: “All trains coming to or from the Port of Vancouver have been suspended due to flooding inside British Columbia.”
The port of Vancouver carries goods valued at $ 550 million ($ 440m) daily, including wheat, coal, vehicles and essential goods.
The floods have also closed major roads in and around the greater Vancouver region, with a population of about 2,500,000, said Polychronis.
The storm temporarily halted the flow of wheat and canola from Canada, one of the world’s largest vegetable-growing countries. It is not known how long it will take for the railway line to be restored.
About 300 people trapped in the mud were rescued by helicopters in British Columbia at the end of Monday.
“Locked between two photographers and 275 other people, including 50 children, were advised to sleep overnight because the garbage was unstable and unsafe to cross,” said the City of Vancouver and Canada Task Force 1 in a statement.
Earlier Monday, authorities in Merritt, about 200km (124 kilometers) northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 7,100 residents to evacuate after rising water cut off bridges and forced sewage treatment plants to close.
The towns of Chilliwack and Abbotsford, east of Vancouver, also ordered a small evacuation on Tuesday.
Some areas received 200mm (8 inches) rain Sunday – the amount they see in a month – and the flooding continued Monday, with roads covered with mud or up to 250mm (10 inches) of water.
In the United States, many power outages were caused by torrential rains in Washington state, south of British Columbia. About 50,000 customers remained powerless Tuesday; 158,000 customers lost power during a typhoon Monday in the state.
A man in the small town of Everson, north of Seattle, has disappeared after being swept away by a flood.
British Columbia and the US in the northwest are often facing a dangerous climate that some experts criticize global warming. The area witnessed wildfires as well historical temperature in summer in hot weather who killed hundreds of people.
