Three Men Confirmed Dead and One Missing After Lillooet Mudslide

Three men have been confirmed dead and one remains missing following a devastating mudslide near Lillooet, B.C., according to RCMP. The slide, which occurred on November 15 on Highway 99 (Duffey Lake Road), was triggered by extreme rainfall and severe weather.

B.C. Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe reported that one body was recovered Wednesday, followed by two more on Thursday. A fourth man remains unaccounted for despite continued search efforts, which were ultimately halted after all avenues were exhausted.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, the body of a woman was recovered from the slide site, marking the first confirmed fatality from the region’s landslides and flooding.

Search efforts, led by RCMP and rescue teams, have faced major challenges due to dangerous site conditions and ongoing bad weather. Authorities are now working to identify the deceased and notify their families.

“I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families grieving the loss of their loved ones,” said Lapointe in a statement. “This has been an incredibly challenging year for all of us in B.C.”

The B.C. Coroners Service continues to investigate the fatalities and aims to provide recommendations to prevent future tragedies.

Highway 99 remains closed, and there is no timeline for reopening. The area is still unsafe for motorists due to the unstable terrain.

The incident is part of a series of weather-related disasters that have caused widespread disruption across southern B.C., emphasizing the growing impact of extreme climate events on local communities.

The account distinguishes between recovery work and the later process of identifying the people who died. Recovering a body gives authorities a further part of the picture at the site. It does not mean relatives have already been notified or that all the circumstances are known. That helps explain why the report describes the recoveries by day while saying identification work was still underway.

Search teams also had to consider whether they could continue working safely. A site affected by a mudslide can remain difficult to enter even after the first movement has stopped. The report identifies dangerous ground conditions and continuing bad weather as obstacles. The decision to halt the search came after efforts to find the missing man had failed to produce a result. The statement leaves his whereabouts unresolved.

For people who normally used Highway 99, the closure was a separate consequence of the disaster. A road can remain unsafe after rescue teams finish a phase of their work. Before traffic returns, authorities need to establish whether the route can be used without exposing motorists to the conditions that made the site dangerous. The account gives no reopening date and says the area remained unsafe.

The coroner’s investigation continues beyond the immediate search. Its work includes understanding the deaths and considering recommendations intended to reduce the risk of a similar loss. Those findings cannot be supplied by the recovery timeline alone. Families are left with the loss of their relatives, and one family still faces the uncertainty of a person who has not been found.