LThe search operations carried out Thursday afternoon on the banks of the Lesse, between Gendron (Houyet) and Anseremme (Dinant) by the rescue services to come to the aid of hundreds of kayakers in difficulty have been completed, indicates Patrice Liétart, spokesperson. word of the Dinaphi area. Seven teenagers were taken to Dinant hospital for hypothermia or anxiety attacks.
Emergency services counted the teenagers. “No one is missing. A good number of students have already been able to return home. We are now waiting for a bus company from Givet to repatriate the last children,” adds Patrice Liétart.
Several of them were in a state of hypothermia and were treated by the advanced medical post and seven of them were transported to Dinant hospital. “However, their days are not in danger”, reassured Thierry Bodlet, the mayor.
Earlier in the day, several hundred kayakers, mainly students, including 400 who came from Flanders (Saint-Truiden and Poperinge, in particular), were descending the Lesse and found themselves in great difficulty following a flow too high.
Olivier Pitance, manager of Dinant Evasion, the only operator that offers kayaking down the river, explains this situation by the arrival of “a huge burst of water” that no one saw coming. “The Lesse gained 1m50 in two hours, it created a real tidal wave. It’s a natural phenomenon that I’ve never seen in my life,” Olivier Pitance testified.
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“Some are hypothermic”: hundreds of kayakers in difficulty on the Lesse
For his part, the mayor of Dinant Thierry Bodlet believes that these young people were released when the water flow was too high. “Everyone who has gone down the Lesse since this morning says they should never have started. If the Walloon Region has not banned the descent of the Lesse despite the climatic conditions, the operator must be able to analyze the situation and do what is necessary,” he criticized.
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