Heavy rain brought flooding throughout Britain yesterday, creating mudbaths at music festivals, causing chaos at the British Formula One Grand Prix – and even stopping a rowing regatta.
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A car struggles in Saltcoats, Scotland.Photo: GETTY
By Julie Henry
10:27PM BST 07 Jul 2012
In some areas a month's worth of rain fell in 12 hours, the Environment Agency said.
It issued 76 flood warnings in areas stretching from Devon in the South West to Northumberland in the North East. Dozens of householders had to be evacuated.
The weather also claimed a life as a man in his twenties died when his car crashed off a rain-soaked road in East Tynedale, Northumberland.
Forecasters said there was some prospect of relief from the worst of the washout summer on the way, with sunshine and showers predicted for the early part of the week, but heavy showers would follow.
The worst chaos was at Silverstone, where motor-racing fans coming to the British Grand Prix were told to stay away as the car parks turned to mud.
The problems began on Friday night, and by yesterday morning roads around the racing circuit in Northamptonshire were gridlocked. Fans were told to stay away from qualifying sessions in the hope that the car parks could recover for today's race, expected to attract a sell-out crowd of 125,000.
Katie Tyler, the Silverstone spokesman, said fields, already saturated from weeks of above-average rainfall, had become even worse. "In the interests of safety we have turned people away," she said. "We are genuinely upset."
Festivals were also hit, including T In The Park, Scotland's biggest, at Balado in Kinross-shire, where much of the site was a quagmire.
Other events had to be called off, including a rowing regatta on the River Exe, which had to be cancelled because water levels were too high for safe rowing, and a seafood festival in Weymouth, Dorset, when stalls were washed into the sea by a combination of high winds and heavy seas.
The worst flooding was in the South West. In Yealmpton, Devon, about 40 homes were hit by up to 6ft of water as the River Yealm reached a record high of 7ft 6in, breaching flood defences. Richard Creswell, regional director for the Environment Agency, said a month's rain fell on the Yealmpton area in just over 12 hours. The river rose to its highest for 60 to 70 years.
"The rain just overwhelmed the defences and unfortunately properties have been flooded, but thankfully no one has been hurt," he said.
Elsewhere, firemen were called to protect properties from flooding in Powys and Carmarthenshire, Wales; residents in the Leicestershire village of Sheepy Magna were evacuated from their homes, and campsites near rivers in Northumberland and County Durham were evacuated.
Brendan Jones, a forecaster with Meteogroup, said: "The next couple of days aren't going to be as bad as the last couple of days. The heavy rain in the South at the moment is going to pass overnight.
The worst flooding in decades in southern Russia's Krasnodar Region, near the Black Sea, has killed at least 153 people and damaged over 5,000 homes. Authorities have pledged to help survivors and compensate them for lost houses and belongings.
The natural disaster's official death toll has reached 153 people, the Interior Ministry reports. Due to the severity of the event, there is a strong possibility that that number will rise.
Most of the casualties occurred in Krymsk, an inland town hit the worst by the disaster. There were also reports of deaths and substantial damage in the coastal cities of Gelendzhik and Novorossiysk.
The disaster has wrecked the lives of more than 12,000 people who have lost their loved ones or seen their homes severely damaged or destroyed.
The flash flood inundated the cities of Gelendzhik, Krymsk and Novorossiysk as well as the four villages of Divnomorskoe, Nizhnebakanskaya, Neberdzhaevskaya and Kabardinka.
Over 5,000 houses were damaged by the flood waters, Krasnodar Governor Aleksandr Tkachev said. In Krymsk alone, the Emergencies Ministry says around 4,600 households were inundated. In Kuban over 250 houses were completely destroyed.
Thus far over 2,800 people have been evacuated from flood-hit areas in Krasnodar by local authorities working in conjunction with rescue workers from Russia’s Emergencies Ministry.
Around 30,000 people have been deprived of electricity in the region after power outages occurred in seven towns, said Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations. Additionally, over 80 percent of the population of Krymsk is now without gas.
President Vladimir Putin surveyed the area by helicopter, and met with local and federal authorities to address the aftermath of the tragedy.
Putin stated that every family affected by the disaster will receive 150,000 rubles (about $4,600) as compensation, the president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Initial transfers of ten thousand rubles are to be delivered to the victims as early as Monday.
Two million rubles (about $61,000) will be paid to every family that lost a relative in the flooding. The state will also pay for the restoration of homes damaged by the disaster.
The spending is to be equally distributed between the federal and regional budgets. Local authorities estimate the total damages to the region at over one billion rubles ($30 million).
Putin also stressed the need to provide shelter, food and clothing for those displaced by the flooding.
Internet activists have also started a campaign to collect money for people injured or displaced by the flooding. A group of volunteers is preparing to go to the region to help out those in need.
Chances of continued flooding and new damage and casualties remain high, as more heavy rain is expected to hit the area Sunday.
Photos show the extent of the devastation caused by the flood waters, see more in RT's photo gallery.
Image from twitter.com/Suren_Gazaryan
Image from twitter.com/Suren_Gazaryan
Image from twitter.com/Suren_Gazaryan
Flooded street of the city of Krymsk (AFP Photo / Russia's Interior ministry)
A car lies submerged in a flooded street in the village of Novoukrainsk (REUTERS/Stringer)
A stranded car is seen in a recently flooded street in the southern Russian town of Krymsk (REUTERS/Stringer Russia)
Image from twitter.com/Suren_Gazaryan
Flooded street of the city of Krymsk (AFP Photo / Russia's Interior ministry)
A stranded car is seen in a recently flooded street in the southern Russian town of Krymsk (REUTERS/Stringer Russia)
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Image from vk.com/albums1455855
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