A COSAR member at the landslide site on April 2.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/COSAR
April 07, 2025 - 3:54 PM
West Kelowna RCMP have started a missing person investigation at the landslide site on Westside Road and an official with Central Okanagan Search and Rescue said they are searching for a pickup truck.
A person was last seen in the area on April 1, the same day as the landslide, according to an RCMP press release issued today, April 7.
RCMP said that they found “unique items” associated with the person.
A COSAR member told iNFOnews.ca that officials found size 11 boots, a hot tub cover, a cooler, propane canisters and some pieces of what appear to be panels from a pickup truck. He said those items were found the day of the slide and the day after.
RCMP called search and rescue last night, April 6, to get its boat out on Okanagan Lake to search for the truck today.
The search for the truck didn’t begin earlier since the chances of someone driving along and being swept deep into the lake were so slim, but now officials think someone might have been swept away.
“We were asked to go out this afternoon, we started around 12 o’clock,” Duane Tresnich from COSAR said. “More information came forward to the RCMP so they requested us to go back out.”
RCMP aren't releasing much information about the search.
“Due to the circumstances on Westside Road with the landslide no other information for this missing person can be released at this time. We do not want the public going into that area to search for this missing person as the landscape is currently too dangerous and the road is closed,” RCMP said in a statement.
COSAR volunteers searched the area and looked through a former homeless encampment the day after the slide and said at that time the area was clear.
The road was briefly reopened to single-lane alternating traffic Sunday, but was closed again today with little explanation from officials.
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