Torrential downpours have led to flash floods in parts of England and Wales as more areas were warned they face being deluged as a line of thunderstorms moves east.
Dramatic floods hit parts of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and south Wales. At the same time, a drought was formally declared in Yorkshire and more supply problems in Surrey led to dozens of homes suffering a fifth day without water.
A yellow warning for dangerous thunderstorms on Wednesday has been extended to cover all of southern England, East Anglia, and parts of the Midlands and southern Wales. People in these areas were told to expect “fast flowing or deep floodwater … causing a danger to life.”
A spokesperson for Network Rail could not confirm whether the storms had caused the damage to overhead power cables on the east coast mainline that led to severe rail disruption between Peterborough and London’s King’s Cross station.
Videos posted online showed flash flooding hitting Newquay and Fowey in Cornwall and Port Talbot in south Wales.
The A358 in Somerset was temporarily blocked by a landslip of “mud, sand and potatoes”, according to Travel Somerset.
Tom Bray, who runs Haywood Farm cider in St Mabyn near Wadebridge in Cornwall, described the moment his apple cellar was flooded with runoff water.
Flash flooding as heavy #rain flowed down the stairs at Haywood Farm Cider in St Mabyn near #Wadebridge
— Cornwall's Pirate FM (@piratefm) August 16, 2022
Thanks @tombrayhaywood for sharing this video with us pic.twitter.com/waLLaUyTzd
He said: “I’ve never seen rain so heavy. The fields are so dry, it was just running off into our yard and then it just started pouring down the steps into our cellar.”
He added: “If I’d done a better job of sealing the floor it could have damaged the apples but luckily I hadn’t and they were on pallets. I’m pleased for the rain in some respects because the apples we grow have been looking really small this year due to the drought. So the rain is welcome, just not quite so hard.”
Meanwhile the Environment Agency placed Yorkshire into drought status, with the county joining eight other areas of England declared dry on Friday.
And in Cranleigh in Surrey about 60 homes that had their water supply cut off over the weekend, after pump failure at a Thames Water treatment works, were cut off again on Monday and Tuesday due to a burst main.
Liz Townsend, a Liberal Democrat county councillor for the area, said: “They briefly got water back on Monday, but now it’s off again, because extra water from tankers used to boost supplies caused old cement pipes to crack. It happens all the time.”
She now fears the area could be hit by flash floods. “That would be the icing on the cake. We do suffer from flash flooding here – then you get water mixing with sewage coming out through the drain, which is not a nice at all.”
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The National Flood Forum charity said the UK was still “reactive and not proactive” about flood risk even though flooding had become a regular pattern for the country.
Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, Heather Shepherd, the charity’s flood recovery specialist, said: “Flooding has definitely increased and certainly the length of time that I’ve been working in flood risk, and we see it now as a regular pattern, don’t we, every year.
“I still think we are quite reactive and not proactive. As soon as it’s not in the headlines, flooding, we tend to be a bit too laid back.”
She also said “building like mad everywhere” was increasing flood risk, as “a lot of that is on places where water had space and it no longer has. It overwhelms our drainage infrastructure. And we’re seeing more and more urban flooding”.
On Tuesday, Greater Manchester police (GMP) said the body of a 14-year-old girl had been recovered from water in Greater Manchester after a “devastating” incident, prompting police to urge people to keep safe in hot weather.
Emergency services were called to reports of a person getting into difficulty in the water near Crowswood Drive in Stalybridge, Tameside, shortly before 6.30pm on Monday. On Tuesday, GMP announced that her body had been recovered overnight.
