Search resumes for 4 missing in massive landslide in southeastern B.C. – hope languishing

July 14, 2012 – CANADA – The search for four people assumed caught in Thursday’s landslide in southeastern B.C. resumed Friday afternoon and was to continue until dark, and then resume at first light Saturday morning, officials say. More landslides earlier Friday had delayed the ground search for a father, his two adult daughters and a German woman believed to be trapped by a landslide that roared down a mountainside in southeastern B.C. RCMP said there had been further slides in the area, and because of that searchers had to wait for geotechnicians to assess the safety of the terrain before they went in. Bill Macpherson, spokesman for the Central Kootenay Regional District, said engineers gave the go-ahead, although there was no certainty the danger had passed. “In spite of ongoing debris movement and continued slope instability, the search of the landslide at Johnsons Landing has resumed this afternoon at approximately14:15 hours [PT],” Macpherson said in a statement Friday afternoon. About 40 rescue workers are now in Johnsons Landing, with 13 on top of the debris pile at any one time, trying to burrow in strategically to locate possible survivors, Vancouver Fire Department spokesman Les Sziklai told CBC News on Friday night. The department has a number of personnel assisting at the landslide scene, Sziklai said. The earlier search delay had frustrated family members and local residents. “It’s taken them a long time to get in there. In the old days we would’ve just gone in by ourselves, and it may have been dangerous, but this place is full of independent people,” said resident Susan Grimble. The girls’ mother, Lynn Migdal, who is in Florida, told CBC News that Diana Webber, 22, and Rachel Webber, 17, and her ex-husband, Valentine Webber, were about to sit down for breakfast moments before the slide hit. Now she believes they are trapped under the debris that destroyed the home. “There is three people buried deep down in my house right now and there is not one rescue person on the property. Something fast has to be done,” Lynn Migdal said just after 7 a.m. PT. Three homes in the small community of Johnsons Landing, located just north of Kaslo on the east side of Kootenay Lake, were hit by the landslide on Thursday. –CBC