By Canadian Press

Quebec police divers find final sunk snowmobile amid search for missing tourists

Jan 26, 2020 | 9:07 AM

ST-HENRI-DE-TAILLON, Que. — Divers with Quebec’s provincial police say they have located the seventh and final submerged snowmobile involved in a tragic accident last Tuesday in the province’s Lac-Saint-Jean region.

The search for four missing tourists from eastern France resumed this morning, five days after a group and their guide disappeared into the icy waters while snowmobiling off-trail.

While five men were orginally reported missing, divers found the body of 58-year-old Gilles Claude on Friday, about two kilometres from where the first snowmobiles were located.

The guide, Benoit L’Esperance of Montreal, was pulled from the water by rescuers on Tuesday night and died in hospital early Wednesday.

A total of eight tourists and their guide were travelling near Lac-Saint-Jean on Tuesday evening when the ice gave way somewhere between St-Henri-de-Taillon and Alma.

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Two of the travelling party managed to save a third tourist who’d fallen into the water and they made it to shore and alerted authorities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan 26, 2020

The Canadian Press