Landslide Swallows Canadian Home: Bodies of Family of Four Recovered from Sinkhole Wreckage

NY Daily News- A family of four was found dead in their basement after their farmhouse was swallowed into the earth by a massive sinkhole.

The bodies of Richard Prefontaine, his wife, Line, and their two young daughters, Anais and Amelie, were pulled from the wreckage in St. Jude, Quebec, a day after Monday night's flash landslide, the Toronto Star reported.

"After digging and going through the rubble we found the four victims," Michel Dore, Quebec's emergency management coordinator, told reporters Tuesday night. "They were found very close to one another, some of them lying on the couch in the family room in the basement."

Quebec police said the resulting crater is 500 meters by 100 meters (1,640 feet by 330 feet) wide and 30 meters (98 feet) deep, Canada's Globe and Mail reported.

The sole survivor of the tragedy seems to be one of the family's two dogs, which rescue workers found alive outside the home.

"It was like an earthquake," a neighbor, Herman Gagnon, told the Montreal Gazette. Gagnon drove from his home toward town to see what had happened - a drive that took him past the Prefontaine home.

"It was only when I approached the edge of the crevice that I realized what happened," he said.

Report: At Least 2 in Family Die After Sinkhole Swallows Home

[Update 9:59 p.m. ET] Two members of a family whose home was swallowed by a sinkhole were found dead Tuesday evening, officials said, CNN affiliate CBC reports.

The condition of two other family members was not available. All four members of the family were found in the basement of the home, Michel C. Doré, Quebec's associate deputy public security minister,told the CBC.

[Update 2:49 p.m. ET] The mud-caked dog of a Canadian family has been found in a sinkhole that swallowed their home, but searchers have found no signs of the couple and their two daughters, ages 9 and 11, CNN affiliate CBC reported Tuesday afternoon.

Yvon Desrochers, uncle of homeowner Richard Préfontaine, told CBC he fears his nephew and his family were in the home’s 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.

[Posted 11:07 a.m. ET] A Quebec family of four was missing Tuesday after a massive sinkhole swallowed their home, according to reports from CNN affiliates.

Authorities said the home fell 30 feet into the hole when it opened around 9:30 p.m. Monday. A couple in their 40s and two children, ages 9 and 11, were believed to be inside, according to a report by CNN affiliate CBC news.

The couple’s vehicles were seen outside the house and efforts to reach them by cell phone were unsuccessful, authorities told the CBC.

"We tried to reach them by phone, because the father always wears his cellphone on him," Quebec Provincial Police Sgt. Ronald McKinnis told CBC. "The firefighters heard the cellphone, but they weren't able to [locate] it."

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 about 40 miles northeast of Montreal, CNN affiliate CTV reported.

McKinnis told the CBC that the hole was first reported by a truck driver whose rig fell into it Monday night. He suffered only minor injuries, McKinnis said.

Search-and-rescue dogs were being called in to help the search, according to a report in the Montreal Gazette, and a helicopter was circling the area looking for signs of movement.

Quebec Mom’s Body Found In Freezer

LONGUEUIL, Que. — Daniel Martin fibbed so they wouldn’t take his mother away.

For eight months, Martin duped health-care workers into believing the 73-year-old woman was at home with him and doing just fine, a Quebec coroner’s inquiry investigating the circumstances surrounding her death heard Thursday.

What they didn’t know was that Denise Lamontagne’s attentive son, who cared for her at their home, had loaded his mom’s corpse into a freezer.

Coroner Catherine Rudel-Tessier opened a public inquiry Thursday, hoping to determine how the health care system lost track of a woman who had been visited by nurses at least once a month for several years.

Police arrested Martin, 51, in May 2008 after they discovered the frozen body inside the decrepit family home in the Montreal suburb of La Prairie.

Workers at the local clinic had called police when they suspected Martin had been lying about his mother’s condition.

An autopsy determined Lamontagne died of natural causes. Her son was convicted in December with committing an indignity on a body and sentenced to 18 months probation.

In her ruling, the judge acknowledged the case was delicate because Martin had such a “strong connection” with his mom.

On Thursday, the inquiry heard that Lamontagne was sent home in August 2007 following an extended stay in hospital.

Shortly after her release, nurse Chantal Petit visited the woman, who had been in and out of hospital over several years for many ailments, including diabetes.

That was the last house call Lamontagne would ever receive.

Petit said she gave the woman her monthly injection of vitamin B12, but Lamontagne refused, as she had many times over the years, any further treatment.

Still, Petit said the woman appeared reasonably healthy.

Martin, however, expressed concern that Lamontagne’s condition had deteriorated since her discharge, she said.

“I’m scared that my mom is going to die,” Petit said Martin told her.

After that visit, Martin refused all house calls to see Lamontagne.

Whenever the clinic’s employees phoned, Martin told them his mother was OK and didn’t want to be seen anymore.

Nurse Nancy Theoret, who visited Lamontagne regularly for five years, said there was no reason to be concerned.

“You could tell that he really loved his mother,” she told the inquiry, also recalling how, in a heartbeat, he would drop everything to help her.

“He wanted to stay with her.”

Theoret said she never feared for the woman’s safety at home.

“I had no doubt that every time she wasn’t well he would take her to the hospital,” she said.

Psychologist Melanie Marois testified that when patients are capable of making their own medical decisions, their right to choose what kind of care they receive must be respected.

But on April 30, 2008, Marois discovered that Martin had lied to his aunt, saying that the clinic was visiting Lamontagne on a regular basis.

“She was surprised,” Marois said about when she told the aunt, Lamontagne’s sister, that it wasn’t true.

“She didn’t understand why her nephew lied. That’s when I said, ’ Now, I’m starting to worry about your sister.’ “

Doctors from the hospital where Lamontagne had been treated are to testify at a later date.