Britain holds emergency talks on ‘unprecedented’ floods

Red Cross volunteers have been drafted into help, using 4x4s to transport doctors and nurses to Bangor Hospital, as the A55 has been flooded, whilst flooding in North Wales has caused major travel disruption on the roads with many motorists having to be rescued in heavy rain on Boxing Day.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron chaired on Sunday the government’s civil emergency committee, COBRA, meeting to discuss the situation in North West England amid large-scale floods in the region.

There are a number of flood warnings and alerts issued by the Environment Agency across all parts of North Yorkshire. “I’ll chair a Cobra [emergency committee] call tomorrow to ensure everything is being done to help”.

“In Lancashire every single river was at a record-high”, she said.

A picturesque 200-year-old pub, The Waterside, in the greater Manchester area, collapsed, with part of the structure swept away by the River Irwell.

In his remarks, Floods Minister Rory Stewart stated that “certainly what we’ve seen is rainfall levels that nobody’s ever seen before”.

Northern areas of Greater Manchester were badly affected by flooding including large parts of Wigan, Bury and Rochdale while a pothole appeared on the M62 near Rochdale between junctions 19 and 20, which led to traffic chaos.

Roads in central Leeds, where a severe warning is in place on the River Aire, are also under water.

However, the reason for the extra minimum height is to not only guard against the uncertain future as a effect if climate change induced sea level rise and heavy rain fall flooding, but also to allow for failure of the drainage system which means that properties tend to flood to several metres above the height of overflowing rivers.

Now more than 7,000 homes have no power following abnormal rainfall.

But in dramatic scenes the city centres of Manchester and Leeds were also left partially underwater.

“My thoughts are with people whose homes have been flooded”.

Peter Box, environment spokesman for the Local Government Association, said councils are “pulling out all the stops” to find accommodation for people made homeless by the flooding. The EA said it was due to “significant impacts to infrastructure and risk to life in the area”.

– Electricity North West has warned power may not be restored to some homes until Monday. The army has already been deployed in recent days in some areas.

The River Foss – which barely reaches more than a few feet in summer – burst its banks in the city centre yesterday evening, flooding one of the main routes through the city, Foss Islands Road and spreading into the Morrisons supermarket vehicle park on the far side.

He told BBC Breakfast: “We have been warning people to take action now to make sure that they keep themselves safe, to check out for vulnerable friends and relatives, to move valuable papers and other belongings to a safe place out of the way of water”.

Flood warnings extended across northern Britain, including the Calder in West Yorkshire and the Ribble, Wyre and Wenning in North Yorkshire.

Mr Cameron said the Government will continue to invest in flood defences but will look again at whether there is more that can be done after many flood barriers were overtopped.