TORONTO: An emergency team has recovered a male body after a landslide swept through a remote village of in the mountainous interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia last week, local media reported, while at least three people are still missing.

After the discovery of the body on Sunday, officials reclassified the effort as a recovery, rather than a rescue, operation.

The Thursday morning slide wiped out three homes in the village of Johnsons Landing, 455 kilometers (282 miles) east of Vancouver in the Selkirk Mountains.

The body recovered is believed to be that of Valentine Webber, 60. Among the others missing are Webber's daughters Rachel and Diana Webber, and a female German tourist, Petra Frehse.

In central British Columbia, record rainfall has combined with heavy snow melting from the mountains to threaten dams, wash out roads and raise the water level in the 104-kilometer-long (65-mile) Kootenay Lake to its highest in 40 years.

The exact cause of the Johnsons Landing slide is not yet known, but the district government said it began near a rain-swollen creek.

About 45 kilometers east, a separate mudslide on Sunday afternoon in the area around Fairmont Hot Springs forced the evacuation of a nearby resort. AGENCIES