EAR FALLS, Ont. — Two American men were killed and another was missing after a tornado uprooted two cabins and dropped the buildings into a northwestern Ontario lake.
The tornado touched down Thursday at the Fisherman’s Cove Resort on Lac Seul, about 15 km south of Ear Falls, Ont., at about 8:30 p.m. local time.
Tourists and resort operators worked at cleaning up the debris Friday that had scattered through the picturesque locale popular for hunting and fishing.
Bernie Jackson, 65, and Stan Hollis, 79, both of Oklahoma were killed, according to the Tulsa World newspaper. Dennis Kinkaid, 66, also from Oklahoma, was still missing Friday said his wife, Dayna.
“Here we are in tornado alley and you go to Canada and have this freakish thing happen,” she told the paper.
All three men were inside the cabin when it was ripped from the ground, said Geoff Coulson, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.
Five other people inside a second cabin received minor injuries, Coulson said.
The two bodies were found in the water several metres offshore, police said.
Kyle Kurscheidt, who on vacation at the resort from Wisconsin, was sporting a bloody gash around his left eye Friday after becoming one of those injured in the second cabin.
“I tried to grab for the floor and then (the winds) just sucked me up and I closed my eyes and hoped like hell I didn’t get hit by something,” he told CBC News.
Officers spent Friday scouring the area around Fisherman’s Cove for the missing man.
“Given the circumstances we’re quite concerned it really has moved into the recovery stage of the investigation, but again we’ll continue to search,” Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Paul Van Belleghem told CBC News.
The national weather office confirmed the tornado touched down after dispatching a staff member to the area to survey the damage.
The tornado, ranked as an F2, had wind speeds between 180 and 240 kilometres per hour, Environment Canada said.