Flooding spurs UK committee to meet
Print Edition
BRITAIN’S emergency response committee met yesterday after prolonged heavy rain caused widespread flooding in northwest England and forced emergency services to evacuate residents from their homes.
The meeting was called after storms battered the country overnight, killing one man and leaving hundreds of homes flooded and without power. Police declared a major incident and coastguards were called in to rescue stranded residents.
Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said the government committee had been called to “urgently assess the scale of the floods and ensure the response remains coordinated, effective and gets help to those affected as quickly as possible.”
Police said they believed one man was killed in London, which also experienced high winds, after he was blown into the side of a moving bus. There were no other reports of deaths or injuries.
Britain has suffered several heavy floods in recent years. In 2014 thousands of acres of farmland in the south of the country were submerged for weeks and the northwest region was badly flooded in both 2009 and 2005.
Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter that the army had been mobilized to help those affected.
“Looking down the main street where I am now I can’t tell where the river starts and where it ends ... it’s dirty brown water. It’s a real mess,” Mark Walker, a local teacher, said by telephone from the badly-affected city of Carlisle.
He said the water was waist high at points along the road and had flooded local businesses including a car dealership and a convenience store.
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