Family killed as home swallowed up by giant sinkhole in Quebec. Pictures.

Family killed as home swallowed up by giant sinkhole in Quebec.
Sophie Tedmanson
A French-Canadian family were killed when their home fell into a giant sinkhole during a freak landslide in Quebec on Monday.

The four members of the Préfontaines family – including two children aged about 9 and 11 – were watching an ice hockey game on television when the earth suddenly gave way and engulfed their home, on a cliff overlooking the Yamaska River.

Authorities said that the family had been in the basement lounge area cheering on their favourite team, the Montreal Canadiens, when the accident occurred.

Rescuers frantically dug through the night to look for survivors, however the bodies of Richard Préfontaines, his wife and their children, were found late yesterday.

“They were found very close to one another, some of them lying on the couch in the family room in the basement,” said Michel Doré, Quebec’s emergency management co-ordinator.

The family’s pet dog was found earlier, alive and tied to a tree in the mud. The golden retriever, named Foxy, was so weak it was initially thought to be dead, however it is expected to fully recover.

The Préfontaines family home, a pretty green and white farmhouse situated in Saint-Jude northeast of Montreal, fell into a giant crater and was destroyed. The landslide also engulfed three cars and cut in half a large stretch of road.

Firefighters had been able to get into the Préfontaines home but were forced to retreat when the ground began to move again.

Police said at least five other houses were evacuated in the area, affecting about 20 people. Police also closed a stretch of a secondary road where the houses were located.

Local fire department spokesman François Gregoire described the sinkhole as “a pretty gigantic crater”. “It’s hard imagining something like this. It’s pretty impressive,” he said.

Sinkholes can occur when water undermines an area of land or when rock below the land surface shift.

Saint-Jude Mayor Yves Bellefeuille said the community was in shock, especially since the house was not in an area considered to be at risk.

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