Severe summer floods leave three dead in Britain

Jun 26, 2007, 10:51 GMT

London - Torrential rain and severe flooding in central and northern Britain have left three people dead and driven 30,000 from their homes in what Prime Minister Tony Blair called Tuesday an 'extraordinary and serious event.'

Weather experts said the amount of rainfall over the past 24 hours equalled precipitation levels for a whole month.

This month has been registered as the wettest June in Britain since 1873, when records began.

'Our flood defences are holding but this is a difficult situation, and it is not the first time over the past few years that we have been subject to quite unusual and extraordinary weather variations,' Blair said Tuesday.

Sheffield, the steel town in northern Britain, was worst hit. Up to a 1,000 people were housed in emergency accommodation and hundreds were evacuated from their homes in nearby Rotherham as a dam surrounding a nearby reservoir threatened to burst.

A 68-year-old pensioner died as he got out of his car in the city, and a 13-year-old schoolboy drowned in the floods on his way home from school Monday.

Earlier, a 28-year-old man died in Hull, on the north-east coast of Britain, as he attempted to unblock a drain, while his foot got caught in a gully.

Firemen battled for three hours to save him.

The floods turned motorways and city streets into rivers and left hundreds of people stranded in offices, homes and cars, causing incalculable damage.

Four tornadoes were reported from the affected regions, covering a large swathe of northern, north-east and central Britain.

There was major disruption to road and rail traffic as railway tracks were flooded and motorways water-logged, and cars could be seen floating through the streets of cities such as Sheffield and Leeds.

The authorities in South Yorkshire declared the situation a 'major incident' while in Lincoln, World War II sirens were sounded to warn people of the danger.

Further heavy rainfalls were forecast for south-west Britain for the end of the week in what press reports said would be a 'killer summer.'