The Canadian Pacific coast province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency Wednesday following floods and mudslides caused by extremely heavy rainfall, and officials said they expected to find more dead. Every major route between the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, where Canada’s third largest city of Vancouver is, and the interior of the province has been cut by washouts, flooding or landslides following record-breaking rain across southern British Columbia between Saturday and Monday. The body of a woman was recovered from one of the mudslides late Monday. “Torrential rains have led to terrible flooding that has disrupted the lives and taken lives of people across B.C. I want people to know that the federal government has been engaging with the local authorities,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Washington. “We’re sending resources like the Canadian Armed Forces to support people but also we’ll be there for the cleanup and the rebuilding after impacts of these extreme weather events.” The federal government said it was sending the air force to assist with evacuations and to support supply lines. Military helicopters already helped evacuate about 300 people from one highway where people were trapped in their cars Sunday night following a mudslide, “We expect to confirm even more fatalities in the coming days,” British Columbia Premier John Horgan said. Horgan called it a once in a 500 years event. He said the state of emergency will include travel restrictions so the transport of essential goods medical and emergency services will reach the communities that need them. He asked people not to hoard goods. “These are very challenging times. I’ve been at this dais for two years now talking about challenging times we have faced — unprecedented challenges with public health, wildfires, heat domes and now debilitating floods that we have never seen before,” Horgan said. Horgan said over the past six months there have been drought conditions in Merritt, where the river was at its lowest point in living memory and where people had to be evacuated because of wildfires in temperatures that were unprecedented. And now, he said, much of the community is under water. Also read: Heavy rains in southern India kill 14 people, flood Chennai “We need to start preparing for a future that includes more events like this,” Horgan said. The weather events are all connected and can be attributed to climate change, said John Clague, a professor in the Earth Sciences Department at Simon Fraser University. “Scientists are now saying these particular events, they’re becoming more frequent, exacerbated or ramped up by climate change,” he said. The record temperatures in the summer set the stage for the wildfires, said Clague. The fires burned the ground in a way that prevents water from seeping into the soil. He said that resulted in the water from the torrential rains pouring more quickly into steams and rivers, causing floods. The total number of people and vehicles unaccounted for had not yet been confirmed near the town of Lillooet. Investigators had received reports of two other people who were missing but added that other motorists might have been buried in a slide on Highway 99. ‘’ Chelsey Hughes said she was thankful to have survived the slide that slammed into her car before it landed in a swamp as she was driving along the highway. Hughes was heading home Sunday when she saw a tree starting to fall as a slide shoved her car about a mile off the road and down an embankment. Read: Red alert issued as Teesta flows 60 cm above danger level “Then the car stopped moving and I was just shocked. I was afraid to move because I didn’t know if I was injured,” she said after spending about five hours shivering on top of her car without a jacket next to another vehicle with four university students sharing one jacket atop their vehicle. When Hughes finally connected with a 911 dispatcher, he helped her monitor one student’s condition after he had an asthma attack before they finally saw the lights of rescuers. They spent an hour hiking out, she said of the traumatic events that unfolded Sunday night before nine of them were taken to hospital. She said she has been thinking about the family of a woman who died. “I think that could have been any one of us, and there’s nothing that you can do. When we got hit by that landslide, we just had to surrender,” she said. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said thousands of animals had died and the province was rushing to get veterinarians to other animals that are in danger. ``I can also tell you that many farmers attempted to move animals and then had to walk away because the roads were disappearing beneath them,″ she said. A trade expert said the loss of major transportation routes will hurt the movement of goods both in and out Canada’s largest port in Vancouver. “Vancouver really has an outsized role to play in our Pacific trade,” said Werner Antweiler, an associate professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business. “Commodities will be impacted in a much more significant way because it’s coming by rail or coming by big trucks.”

A Canadian Indigenous group said Wednesday a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site near a former Catholic Church-run residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their families. The latest discovery of graves near Cranbrook, British Columbia follows reports of similar findings at two other such church-run schools, one of more than 600 unmarked graves and another of 215 bodies. Cranbrook is 524 miles (843 kilometers) east of Vancouver. The Lower Kootenay Band said in a news release that it began using the technology last year to search the site close to the former St. Eugene’s Mission School, which was operated by the Catholic Church from 1912 until the early 1970s. It said the search found the remains in unmarked graves, some about 3 feet (a meter) deep. Read:Unmarked graves found at another Indigenous school in Canada It’s believed the remains are those of people from the bands of the Ktunaxa nation, which includes the Lower Kootenay Band, and other neighboring First Nation communities. Chief Jason Louie of the Lower Kootenay Band called the discovery “deeply personal” since he had relatives attend the school. “Let’s call this for what it is,” Louie told CBC radio in an interview. “It’s a mass murder of Indigenous people.” “The Nazis were held accountable for their war crimes. I see no difference in locating the priests and nuns and the brothers who are responsible for this mass murder to be held accountable for their part in this attempt of genocide of an Indigenous people.” From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, with many never returned to their families. Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which today is the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Canadian government has acknowledged that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages. Last week the Cowessess First Nation, located about 85 miles (135 kilometers) east of the Saskatchewan capital of Regina, said investigators found “at least 600” unmarked graves at the site of a former Marieval Indian Residential School. Last month, the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia. Prior to news of the most recent finding, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has asked that the national flag on the Peace Tower remain at half-mast for Canada Day on Thursday to honor the Indigenous children who died in residential schools. On Tuesday, it was announced that a group of Indigenous leaders will visit the Vatican later this year to press for a papal apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Indigenous leaders will visit the Vatican from Dec. 17-20 to meet with Pope Francis and “foster meaningful encounters of dialogue and healing.” After the graves were found in Kamloops, the pope expressed his pain over the discovery and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he didn’t offer the apology sought by First Nations and the Canadian government. Read:More than 200 bodies found at Indigenous school in Canada The leader of one of Canada’s largest Indigenous groups says there are no guarantees an Indigenous delegation travelling to the Vatican will lead to Pope Francis apologizing in Canada. Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde confirmed that assembly representatives will join Metis and Inuit leaders making the trip to the Vatican in late December. “There are no guarantees of any kind of apology″ from the pope, said Bellegarde. “The Anglican Church has apologized,” he told a virtual news conference. “The Presbyterian Church has apologized. United Church has apologized.” “This is really part of truth and part of the healing and reconciliation process for survivors to hear the apology from the highest position within the Roman Catholic Church, which is the pope.” Louie said he wants more concrete action than apologies. “I’m really done with the government and churches saying they are sorry,” he said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.” A papal apology was one of 94 recommendations from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but the Canadian bishops conference said in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for the residential schools. Since the discovery of unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools, there have been several fires at churches across Canada. There has also been some vandalism targeting churches and statues in cities. Four small Catholic churches on Indigenous lands in rural southern British Columbia have been destroyed by suspicious fires and a vacant former Anglican church in northwestern B.C. was recently damaged in what RCMP said could be arson. On Wednesday, Alberta’s premier condemned what he called “arson attacks at Christian churches” after a historic parish was destroyed in a fire. “Today in Morinville, l’église de Saint-Jean-Baptiste was destroyed in what appears to have been a criminal act of arson,” Kenney said in a statement. RCMP said officers were called to the suspicious blaze at the church in Morinville, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Edmonton, in the early hours of Wednesday. Read:Trudeau denounces truck attack that targeted Muslim family Trudeau and an Indigenous leader said arson and vandalism targeting churches is not the way to get justice following the discovery of the unmarked graves. “The destruction of places of worship is unacceptable and it must stop,” Trudeau said. “We must work together to right past wrongs.″ Bellegarde said burning churches is not the way to proceed. “I can understand the frustration, the anger, the hurt and the pain, there’s no question,″ he said. ”But to burn things down is not our way.″

A 28-year-old man was shot to death at the Vancouver International Airport in what authorities said was gang-related Sunday, and police were later fired on while pursuing suspects. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said officers intercepted the suspected getaway car shortly after the 3 p.m. shooting at the airport and came under gunfire from the car. At least two suspects escaped, and no officers were injured. Police later found a burning car about 28 kilometers (17miles) away. Also Read:Sheriff: Deputy fatally shot Black man while serving warrant RCMP Sgt. Frank Jang said the 28-year-old shooting victim was known to police and the incident was related to a gang conflict that the region has seen lately. The man was fatally shot near the departure terminal at Vancouver’s airport, which is in neighboring Richmond, British Columbia. Traffic cones blocked off a section of the international and domestic departure areas at the airport, and police erected tall, white screens in front of an entrance, blocking views of the shooting scene. Most of the shops in the area were shut down. The Vancouver Airport Authority referred questions about the shooting death to police. It said the airport remained open. Also Read:Police: 3 hurt in Florida mall shooting as shoppers scatter Federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said in a statement on Twitter that the shooting was disturbing. ``My thoughts are with the communities in the Lower Mainland who have been impacted by gun and gang violence far too often, particularly over the last week,″ Blair said. There has been a string of shootings in the Vancouver area over the last several days, including two separate daytime shooting deaths in busy shopping malls. Police said both were targeted killings. One of the victims was a prison corrections officer.