In the third period of the hockey game, with their beloved Habs
on the way to victory, the Préfontaine family was nestled around
the big TV in their basement living room when the land gave way
with a ferocious roar. The first hint for some of the neighbours
in Saint-Jude, a village about 50 kilometres northeast of
Montreal, came when power was cut to their own television sets.
Others heard the noise when thousands of tons of clay that had
been still for 10,000 years went rolling down the river bank.
They thought an earthquake had struck, so they set out along
Salvail Road to see what had happened. At the bottom of a new
gully, Richard Préfontaine and Lyne Charbonneau, along with
their two daughters, 12-year-old Amélie and nine-year-old Anaïs,
were trapped. With their house up to the eaves in mud, officials
confirmed all four dead Tuesday evening, nearly 24 hours after
the slide. After the land caved in, neighbours came upon the
immense hole in the earth, as long as a kilometre, which cut the
paved road along