The two victims are a man in his sixties and a man in his seventies.
The SQ has a total of nine injured, including three seriously injured.
Six people were taken to a Quebec hospital center whose medical conditions required very specialized care, according to the Bas-Saint-Laurent Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS).
Four people were being treated at Amqui Hospital on Monday afternoon. Three of the four injured have already been discharged from the hospital.
Two air ambulances were mobilized in Mont-Joli to take patients to a hospital center in Quebec.
The driver of the van struck pedestrians walking along Route 132. He continued on his way a little to meet other pedestrians, explained SQ Sergeant Claude Doiron.
Police say the suspect being questioned by investigators is a 38-year-old local man.
He turned himself in to the police and was arrested for hit and run. Later that evening, SQ spokeswoman Sergeant Hélène St-Pierre said he had also been arrested for the murder as everything indicated it was a premeditated act.
Everything indicates that this would be an isolated case. There is no longer any danger in the area and there is only one suspect, the spokeswoman reported.
Planes transport patients to a hospital in Quebec.
Photo: Radio Canada / Edouard Beaudoin
In an interview on the show Same frequency, broadcast on ICI Première, PQ MP for Matane-Matapédia, Pascal Bérubé, said he had received “very worrying information”.
I’m told of dead people, I’m told of injured pedestrians, children… It would be a terrible tragedy, he said.
Mr. Bérubé also went to Amqui. He said he was in contact with Quebec Minister of Public Safety François Bonnardel.
Quebec Deputy Prime Minister Geneviève Guilbault spoke about drama in an interview with Patrice Roy on ICI RDI.
We are talking about – I used the word ‘tragedy’ – a drama with a psychosocial dimension, she said. People may be traumatized. If we ensure that mental health services are dispatched in real time, that is a tragedy of some magnitude.
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For his part, the spokesman for the CISSS du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Gilles Turmel, confirmed that a code orange is in force at the Amqui hospital.
The CISSS also dispatched psychosocial workers directly to Saint-Benoît Boulevard to attend to many witnesses in shock.
The tragedy would have happened just after 3 p.m. in front of the La Captive microbrewery. Traffic was halted in both directions on Boulevard Saint-Benoit Ouest. In the evening, a security area was set up around the scene of the accident.
Several ambulances were mobilized at Amqui Hospital.
Photo: Radio Canada / Jean-François Deschênes
The mayor of Amqui, Sylvie Blanchette, who was present at the scene of the accident, assured that the citizens would be offered all the necessary assistance.
“I’m here for the people of Amqui, to tell them that our hearts are with them. We know they will need support and we will do so over the next few hours and days. »
— A quote from Sylvie Blanchette, Mayor of Amqui
Trucker Alain Gilbert was at the scene of the accident. He claimed to have seen four adults lying on the ground 500 meters away. An adult received a cardiac massage from an SQ police officer.
Chantal Poirier, she worked at a clinic near the scene of the accident. We’ve raised the curtain [de la fenêtre] and I saw one, two, three, four people on the floor. […] I went to see [une victime] and I just stayed with her, she said.
With information from Lisa-Marie Bélanger, Isabelle Damphousse and Guillaume Whalen