Devastating effects of BC flooding visible from space

At this point, we don’t need to outline what has happened in British Columbia since the weekend.

There has been wall-to-wall coverage of the devastating flooding, landslides and widespread devastation caused by record-breaking rainfall.

Photos and videos from affected areas around the province have painted a clear picture of how serious the situation is, but a photo from space really hammers the point home.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield shared the NASA photo to Twitter on Wednesday, which shows the massive plume of run-off debris funnelling out of the Fraser River.

Vancouver circled. pic.twitter.com/QAF1s11CW6

— Robert Lee 💉💉😷🌃 (@downtownrob88) November 17, 2021

While this type of aerial image is not uncommon for BC lakes during the spring freshet season, the size of this plume is astonishingly large.

It’s around the same size as Vancouver, which can be seen directly to the right of the runoff in the photo, and has basically reached Vancouver Island, covering the width of the Strait of Georgia.

Hadfield called it an “amazing movement of topsoil into the sea,” and urged everyone to stay safe during this national disaster.

As cities like Abbotsford and Merritt continue to deal with catastrophic flooding, work is ongoing around the province to clean up various slide sites and get major highways back open.

There has been one confirmed fatality so far, a Lower Mainland woman who was caught in a landslide on Hwy 99, while officials have also confirmed that thousands of animals perished in Abbotsford.