Rescue teams allowed to try to reach family in Montreal-area sinkhole

MONTREAL – Rescue workers have been given the go-ahead to go back on to unstable ground to search for a family of four missing since Monday night when a huge sinkhole opened up and the family’s home sank into it in St. Jude, about 77 kilometres northeast of Montreal near St. Hyacinthe.

"The rescue workers are firefighters trained in the rescue of people in very tight spaces," explained McInnis. Search-and-rescue dogs are being used to enter the home, which is precariously tilted on an angle and partly covered by grey earth.

The sinkhole on Rang Salvail, not far from the Salvail River, was created about 9 p.m. Monday and may have been caused by a landslide, media reports said Tuesday morning. TV pictures from the scene showed only a roof sticking up out of the hole. Aerial photos showed several buildings partially covered by earth.

Other landslides during the night forced residents of five nearby homes outside as a precaution, said Yvan Leroux, an official with Quebec Civil Security.

The hole is estimated to be 500 metres by one kilometre and about 10 metres deep.

The missing reportedly include a couple in their 40s and two children, ages nine and 11. "I know (the family) well," said Yves Bellefeuille, mayor of St. Jude, on a TV news channel. "They are a long-standing family from St. Jude."

St. Jude has 1,200 residents, he said. "This is awful," Bellefeuille said. "Everyone around here is very worried."

Firefighter Francis Gregoire said rescue workers went up to the house Monday night. "It was completely lopsided. We tried the father’s cellphone and he didn’t answer. We could hear the phone ringing somewhere in the house."

Jocelyn Demers, another rescue worker, said two teams of four firefighters went inside some of the buildings Monday night. They searched for nearly an hour and found no signs of the missing people, he said.