The bodies of a Canadian couple and their two daughters were found late Tuesday in the basement of their house that plunged into a massive sinkhole, CNN affiliates reported.
"They were found very close to one another, some of them lying on the couch in the family room in the basement, where we were told that they'd be," said Michel C. Doré, Quebec's associate deputy public security minister, who was on the scene, told CNN affiliate CBC.
Yvon Desrochers, uncle of homeowner Richard Préfontaine, told the CBC on Tuesday feared his nephew and his family were in the basement watching the Montreal Canadiens-Pittsburgh Penguins hockey playoff game Monday night when the ground gave way beneath the home, about 40 miles northeast of Montreal.
Besides Préfontaine, those in the home were his wife, Lyne Charbonneau, and their two daughters, Amélie, 12, and Anaïs, 9.
The family’s dog was found alive – caked in mud – in the sinkhole earlier Tuesday.
The hole was about 500 yards long and forced the evacuation of five other homes in the town of Saint-Jude, in a rural area near the Yamaska River.
While there was no official word on the cause of the sinkhole, geologist Judith Patterson told CNN affiliate CTV that the sinkhole looked like a kind of landslide known as a “lateral spread.”
The region has soils known as “quick clay” that can liquefy, leading to a landslide or sinkhole, she told CTV.
"These clays, they're stable when they're undisturbed. But once they're disturbed, then they become very hazardous," she told CTV.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Adame Esmakidze- Seeing as how you're so worried about spelling and grammar instead of an entire family dying, genius- it's OVERPAID.
If God is saying anything through this tragic ACCIDENT, its this: "Get a professional geological survey done on all surrounding property when planning on building a house."
It's just unbelievable how many people's first reaction to news of a tragedy like this is to say "God bless them". Clearly their god did not bless them. How can it be that people ascribe good things to their god, but don't blame the same god when something like this happens? One commenter said a devil did it when "God's" back was turned. Huh? I thought "God" was supposed to be omnipotent. How could "He" not see what the devil was doing? Another commenter said that the family died because of the collective sins of other people. Great, the god of love is going to ruthlessly kill one particular family because of other people's "sins"? Religious nutbags.
People have a bad tendency to build in high hazard areas because they do not understand the hazard. They also use the wrong kind of construction. I think many of the homes exposed to this type danger were constructed before people knew about the danger. Similar slides occur in other parts of the world, often as the result of rain saturating the soil.
I don't think humans are equals to animals. Animals don't destroy the planet, they don't make mass murdering among themselve, they don't kill for "the fun of the feeling" (alias for sport as we say in human language). There are no comparaison between human and animal. So when humans try to express so much compassion about animals well being it should first reflects in their ACTIONS and not words. Animals benefit first and above all our GOOD ACTIONS. They don't read blogs. What do you really DO for animals (i mean really, not only having one as a "pet", not only writing in blogs) ? By the way, on my side I know I DO. With all respect.
Don't disturb the clay.
My response is for Troy (waaay up at the top – and anyone in between. Someone may have mentioned this in here, but there are a lot of comments to wade through. Sorry for duplicate information)
I read at one point earlier (on a Canadian news site), when they were still trying to reach the family, that the sink hole was 9 metres deep. I'm 5'7" and that's around 1.7metres (to give you an idea for the depth). So the whole house (family in the basement) dropped by that distance in an uneaven fashion (sort of like an earthquake – but with more downward force than side to side, and probably not all at the same time).
Apparently while they were trying to locate the family, they'd been calling the father's cell phone to locate them because he always had it on him – they could hear it rining but couldn't get at the family because the ground was too unstable. Very sad.
I don't think humans are equals to animals. Animals don't destroy the planet, they don't make mass murdering among themselve, they don't kill for "the fun of the feeling" (alias for sport as we say in human language). There are no comparaison between human and animal. So when humans try to express so much compassion about animals well being it should first reflects in their ACTIONS and not words. Animals benefit first and above all our GOOD ACTIONS. They don't read blogs. What do you really DO for animals (i mean really, not only having one as a "pet", not only writing in blogs) ? By the way, on my side I know I DO. With all do respect.
How was the region disturbed? It says the ground is normally stable UNLESS disturbed but it does not relay why this happened (or what actually caused the landslide)??
What a very sad story!
Note to Adame Esmakidze–I believe the word you intended to use is "overpaid" not "overpayed". You might want to edit your own notes!
The Dark Lord Approaches:
Okay, this is a really sad story for this family and I started reading all the comments then I started reading yours and thinking, man this guy is a nut case. So I skipped over a few until I got to the last one. Then I started at the beginning and read all to my husband and we laughed our a**es off. I'm a Christian, but I have to admit it, you said it all! Maybe you should go to work for CNN!
The only thing that separates humans from animals is the need to feel that we are somehow separated.
If there was a recommended evacuation whyt were they still at that house to begin with You did mention that other homes had been evacuated.
I hope the family got to see their Canadiens beat the Pens in Game 7 tonight....from wherever they are.
Rest in peace, family who got killed. It must have been terrifying especially for the children. Let's learn from this. Don't buy a house unless its foundation is on solid bedrock!