A renowned scientist leading a study on Bermuda’s water quality has been killed in a landslide on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Quebec medical researcher Éric Dewailly, 59, was one of two people who died on Tuesday when a cliff above them collapsed as they were picnicking at the foot of a waterfall.

According to Canadian media, six people — all members of the same extended family — were at the foot of Biberon Falls when the collapse occurred at about 1pm local time on the French island, which lies to the east of Madagascar.

Dr Dewailly was a professor of medicine at Laval University in Quebec and director of Laval University Medical Centre’s Public Health Research Unit, as well as an adjunct faculty member of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS).

BIOS President and director Bill Curry was among many on the Island paying tribute to him yesterday. Dr Curry told The Royal Gazette: “It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Dr Éric Dewailly. Dr Dewailly first joined BIOS in 1997 as a visiting scientist in residence and was appointed as adjunct faculty in 1999.

“He was instrumental in the establishment of BIOS’s International Center for Ocean and Human Health, using his role as a physician to enhance the centre’s expertise on the connection between human health and seafood consumption.

“In 1999, he took a year long sabbatical at BIOS investigating the exposure of pregnant women to methylmercury via consumption of local fish, resulting in a 2004 report to the Bermuda Government and a suite of public outreach and education programmes to reduce risks.

“Most recently, under Dr Dewailly’s leadership, the Atlantis Mobile Lab returned to BIOS to lead another study looking at the impact of local animals on untreated tank water around the Island. He will be missed by the research and medical communities both here and abroad.”

Rachel Parsons, BIOS’s microbial observatory lab manager, said she first met Dr Dewailly when he was teaching at BIOS in 1998.

“Éric enjoyed life, especially good food and wine, and he had a wonderful, relaxed way about him. He certainly enjoyed Bermuda and the island life. Éric was an amazing scientist; he was able to see the bigger picture, and put this concept into practice with the Atlantis Mobile Laboratory that was in Bermuda in 2003 and again in 2013.

“BIOS has lost a great advocate for the importance of science and human health in the marine environment. I am extremely saddened by the loss of Dr Dewailly, as a person and as a scientist.”

Clare Morrall, former BIOS graduate student and current director of marine biology at St George’s University, Grenada, described Dr Dewailly as an “inspiring, energetic, brilliant man”.

She said: “We’ve lost an amazing scientist and teacher — one who thought outside of the box and brought multiple scientific and medical disciplines together. By doing so he was, I feel, instrumental in the birth of the concept of ocean health and human health as a single discipline.”

David Kendell, director of the Department of Health, said the Department offered sincere condolences to the scientist’s colleagues and friends, here and abroad.

“Bermuda benefited from over a decade of collaboration with Dr Éric DeWailly and Laval University,” he added “Environmental Health research proliferated with his sponsorship, advocacy, encouragement and guidance including research into drinking water, mercury in fish and oceans and human health.”

Canada’s CBC News Network described Dr Dewailly as a medical doctor and specialist in human toxicology, who was internationally recognised for his work in the Canadian Arctic, studying the endocrine-disrupting effects of environmental toxins in the seafood that makes up the traditional Inuit diet.

This newspaper interviewed Dr Dewailly in April, when he warned residents that untreated tank water should not be considered safe to drink because of the fecal matter from animals it contains. The results of the latest study he was leading should be released later this year.

Dr Dewailly’s wife Sylvie Dodin Dewailly, also a professor of medicine at Laval University, was critically injured in the landslide and is in hospital.

Claude Grocholski, the commander of the Gendarmerie de la Réunion, told CBC that a 29-year-old woman identified as the sister of Dr Dewailly’s son-in-law and a resident of Réunion Island, was killed along with the scientist.

One of Dr Dewailly’s closest friends — a former student and, eventually, colleague — is Dr Philippe Max Rouja, Custodian of Historic Wrecks at Conservation Services.

Speaking of Dr Dewailly, he said: “He probably had a good five to ten postdoctoral students a year in the realm of public health. These are all the top scholars of their generation, and he’s been doing that for 15 years. He had an ability to pull out the best in people and network them and connect them and guide them just through friendship.”

The two met after Dr Rouja delivered a paper at a conference in Japan that explored why aboriginal people in Northern Australia were drawn to certain fish that contained high concentrations of fat.

“Afterwards, a Norwegian woman came up to me and said, ‘You were talking about fats in tropical fish, you need to call my friend Dr Eric Dewailly, he’s the king of fats.’ I came back to Bermuda and called up Universite Laval and asked to speak with him, and they said he was on sabbatical. I asked where and they said, ‘In Bermuda, at the BIOS station.’

“I called him up right away and we met the next day at the flagpole and went and had lunch at La Trattoria — inconsequential, I suppose, but we’ve done it ever since, every time he visits. We even ordered the same pizzas. Almost immediately he became one of the greatest friends I’ve ever had.”