One of five missing French snowmobilers found dead in Quebec
- Published
A search of the area is being conducted on water, land and sea
Canadian authorities have found the body of one of five French tourists who went missing in the province of Quebec after their snowmobiles fell through ice on the edge of a lake.
Their Canadian guide, Benoît Lespérance, 42, died in the Tuesday evening accident.
A wide scale search for the men is into its third day.
Helicopters, drones and snowmobiles are being used in the search, as are dive teams.
On Friday afternoon, Quebec provincial police said they had pulled the body of one of the tourists from the Grande Décharge river, more than 2km (1.25 miles) from where police found six snowmobiles the day before.
Police did not immediately release the name of the man found.
They have identified the five as Gilles Claude, 58, Yan Thierry, 24, Jean-René Dumoulin, 24, Julien Benoît, 34, and Arnaud Antoine, 25.
A group of eight French tourists were exploring the province's Lac St Jean region earlier this week when the accident occurred.
They were not travelling along a trail marked for snowmobiling, say police, and ended up on very thin ice on a snow-covered channel near Lac St Jean when most of their vehicles went through the ice.
Three of the tourists were able to drive to safety and call police.
The call to emergency services came around 19:30 local time (00:30 GMT) on Tuesday from a store in the town of Saint-Henri-de-Taillon, about 225 km (140 miles) north of Quebec city.
- Published22 January 2020
