Floods devastate UK

2009-11-20 22:26

Scott Heppell

Cockermouth - A British police officer was swept to his death on Friday as raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain.

The 44-year-old officer died as a bridge collapsed under pressure from surging waters amid frantic attempts to rescue people from stricken towns and villages.

Military helicopters winched dozens of people to safety and emergency workers in bright orange inflatable boats rescued scores more,

British soldiers conducted house-to-house searches for those trapped by floods as deep as 2.5m. Troops also dropped down on lines from Royal Air Force helicopters, breaking through rooftops to pluck people to safety.

Unprecedented rain

Emergency services said more than 200 people were rescued in the hardest-hit town, Cockermouth. At least 960 homes were flooded after a day of unprecedented rain, police in the northern region of Cumbria said.

Heavy rain and gales also brought widespread flooding to Ireland, as more than 1m of water shut down the centre of the country's second-largest city, Cork, and more than a dozen towns and villages.

Cockermouth, a market town 530km northwest of London, lies at the junction of the Cocker and Derwent rivers and is known as the birthplace of poet William Wordsworth.

"It has devastated the town," said Michael Dunn, manager of the Bitter End pub in Cockermouth. "There is a lot of properties in Main Street, private shops, that have had their windows smashed in by the force of the water and by debris in the water."

Cars floating

"There were cars floating down the street. It will be a long time before Cockermouth recovers from this."

Debris swirled around rescue boats as emergency workers pulled people to safety, while waters lapped at the upper floors of row houses.

Britain's Met Office said a record 314.4mm of rain fell in 24 hours in the area - the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the U.K.

Local House of Commons lawmaker Tony Cunningham said the flood was "of biblical proportions". He said: "The scale and the force of the devastation in Cockermouth is huge."

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn briefed Britain's Cabinet by telephone from the scene. He told the BBC that flood defences were meant to withstand a one-in-100-years flood - but could not cope with the unprecedented volume of water.

"What we dealt with last night was probably more like one-in-a-1 000, so even the very best defences, if you have such quantities of rain in such a short space of time, can be over-topped," Benn said.

Floodwaters easing

The rain stopped and floodwaters began to ease on Friday, giving rescuers a chance to reach trapped people by boat. Tony Walker, of Cockermouth, told BBC radio he was on the top floor of his house and the water on the ground floor was chest-high.

"The water is still pretty deep, it's going down, but at this rate it's going to be hours before it's clear," Walker said.

Police urged people not to travel, as many roads were impassable. Two bridges collapsed in the town of Workington, including a main crossing over the River Derwent. Cumbria Police said Constable Bill Barker, 44, died after he was knocked into the water when the structure gave way.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he had spoken to Cumbria Chief Constable Craig Mackey to offer help. Barker "was a very heroic, very brave man," Brown told.

Irish army

In Ireland, the Irish army deployed more than 100 soldiers, two dozen trucks and several flat-bottomed boats to evacuate people trapped by waist-deep floodwaters in cars and homes. A helicopter also winched to safety a County Galway family of five, including the 87-year-old grandmother.

Floods caused transport chaos along Ireland's western coast, with many major roads blocked and train services cancelled.

The water caused extensive damage to the Lake Hotel on the shores of the fabled Killarney Lakes in County Kerry. About 170 guests at the Victorian period building had to be evacuated by tractor as dozens of staff carried period furniture upstairs.

The hotel's 12th-century castle, normally a floodlit tourist's highlight on the lake vista, was almost completely under water on Friday.

"You can just see the top of the castle and everything else is covered," said the hotel's general manager, Niall Huggard.

In County Leitrim, near the Northern Ireland border, the River Suck burst its banks - flooding the town of Ballinasloe and cutting off major roads to Ireland's northwest. About 40 families had to be evacuated by boat.

The Irish weather forecasting service, Met Eireann, said parts of southern and western Ireland suffered their most intense and sustained rainfall in 30 years.

Friday was mostly sunny but more rain and gales were forecast for the weekend.

- SAPA