B.C. to end state of emergency as wildfire risk winds down
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 14 Sep, 2023 05:12 PM
The British Columbia government says it is ending the state of emergency imposed last month when thousands of residents were chased out of their homes by wildfires.
The government says in a statement the wildfire risk is diminishing in much of the province as temperatures cool, allowing most residents to return home.
Residents of wildfire-ravaged Wilson's Landing in West Kelowna, B.C., were granted a four-hour window Friday to access their homes to retrieve important items as an area-wide restriction order was extended to Sept. 15. The Central Okanagan Regional District says in a statement residents were temporarily permitted entry to the evacuation zone, but no further access is expected this weekend.
Prosecutors in British Columbia have approved multiple charges against a Vancouver police officer a year after a pedestrian was hit by a police car in the city's Downtown Eastside. Const. Jack Zhao has been charged with driving without due care and attention, failing to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian, and speeding.
B-C is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 numbers, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths all up in recent weeks. The monthly report from the B-C Centre for Disease Control shows that 447 people tested positive for the virus between August 27th and September 2nd -- more than triple the 133 cases recorded in the first full week of last month.
Dix was meeting doctors and officials at Surrey Memorial Hospital this morning to update them on expanding the facility's emergency capacity, after complaints this year from workers that they lack resources to cope with the large number of incoming patients.
Burnaby R-C-M-P are asking for the public’s help to identify a suspect who allegedly stole a 75-hundred dollar Rolex watch after setting up meetings on Facebook Marketplace. Police says the victim met the suspect in a Burnaby mall on September 1st to sell a Rolex but the purchase wasn’t completed on that day.
For residents of Canada's East Coast, some of the latest images showing the potential path northward for a rapidly intensifying hurricane Lee are disturbing. By combining multiple computer-generated forecasts, meteorologists have produced maps of the western Atlantic Ocean that suggest the powerful storm could slam into the Maritimes late next week.