By Julie Gordon
OTTAWA, April 22 (Reuters) - Spring flooding has killed one person and forced more than 1,500 people from their homes in Canada's Quebec province, with waters expected to continue rising Monday due to rising temperatures and more rain forecast for the coming days.
Aerial photos showed entire neighborhoods submerged, with television news broadcasting video of residents frantically piling sandbags around their homes to hold back swollen rivers.
An elderly woman died over the weekend after rising waters washed out the road she was driving on, according to media reports.
The federal government said it is providing disaster response to Quebec, including hundreds of Canadian Armed Forces already deployed to help with sandbagging and other efforts.
"Citizens can rest assured that help will be provided," said Canada's Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale in a statement.
It is the second year of major flooding in the last three in Quebec, following massive spring floods in 2017 that caused more than C$230 million ($172 million) in insured damages in Quebec and neighboring Ontario.
A spokesman for Goodale said it was too soon to compare the scale of flooding to 2017, but noted that the frequency and severity of natural disasters has increased in Canada in recent years due to climate change.
The flooding has so far affected nearly 3,000 properties across Quebec, according to the Urgence Quebec website, including homes in the Montreal suburb of Laval and Gatineau, part of the Ottawa capital region.
Separate flooding in the east coast province of New Brunswick has also led to evacuations, though waters were expected to peak on Monday, according to local media reports. ($1 = 1.3350 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Julie Gordon in Ottawa Editing by James Dalgleish)
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