One body found as police search for missing French snowmobilers for third day

ST-HENRI-DE-TAILLON, Que. — Rescue divers with Quebec’s provincial police have pulled the body of one of the five missing French snowmobilers out of the waters of a river in the province’s Lac-Saint-Jean region.

Four other tourists from eastern France remain unaccounted for Friday as authorities continued to search on land, on the water and from the air.

Police say the body was located about two kilometres from where police found submerged snowmobiles and other personal items on Thursday.

They did not identify which of the five missing tourists was found.

For reasons that remain unclear, the group of nine snowmobilers, including their Quebec guide, left the safety of the marked trail through the woods and ventured towards the icy expanse of Lac-Saint-Jean, where the ice gave way somewhere between St-Henri-de-Taillon and Alma.

Two of them managed to get a third person out of the water and alerted authorities. Their guide, 42-year-old Benoit L’Esperance of Montreal, was recovered from the freezing waters and died later in hospital.

The five missing French snowmobilers were identified by police as Gilles Claude, 58, Yan Thierry and Jean-Rene Dumoulin, both 24, Julien Benoit, 34, and Arnaud Antoine, 25.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2020.

The Canadian Press