By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters)
- Torrential rain and gales that battered weather-weary Britain
again on Friday have left two people dead and brought more misery
to thousands already devastated by last month's severe flooding.
Police said
they had recovered a woman's body from an upturned car in a flooded
river in Devon in southwest England, and a man's body was found
further downstream.
"The
river was fast-flowing with a heavy swell. But it's not clear
how the car ended up there," Sergeant Alan Mobbs of Devon
and Cornwall police told Reuters.
He said it
was possible the couple had taken a wrong turn on a heavily-flooded
road and driven into the river by mistake.
Devon and
Cornwall bore the brunt of the storms with two inches of rain
falling there overnight.
The weather
is expected to deteriorate again over the weekend. It has brought
chaos to roads and the rail network and left many homes cut off
by flood water.
The Environment
Agency said five rivers had severe flood warnings in place --
where there is imminent danger to life and property -- and there
were lesser flood warnings in force on 152 rivers across central
and southwest England, and Wales.
It warned
that more flooding was being reported in the Midlands as the heavy
rain moved north.
Emergency
services said they were being stretched to the limit to deal with
calls from the public.
"Every
available officer is dealing with it," Mobbs said.
Earlier on
Friday rescuers were forced to use helicopters to winch 60 elderly
people to safety after a caravan park in Devon was cut off by
flooding.
An empty passenger
train was derailed after hitting a mud slide on the line between
Honiton and Axminster in Devon. The main rail line to Cornwall
was closed at Exeter due to flooding.
Rail operators
said that most services from London to western England had been
severely disrupted.
Meanwhile
the Automobile Association said the main A37 road had been closed
at Dorchester in Dorset along with many other minor roads across
the southwest while most major roads in Devon and Cornwall were
only just passable.
The latest
storms come after thousands of people had to be evacuated from
their homes in low-lying areas and at least seven people died
as violent storms and heavy floods lashed northern Europe in October.
The Meteorological
Office has warned that the weather on Friday and Saturday, caused
by a vigorous depression rising off the coast of Portugal, could
be equally severe.
It said gusts
of up to 80 miles an hour were expected to hit parts of western
England and Wales before moving north to hit Scotland.
"Winds
will definitely be strong enough to cause driving conditions to
be hazardous and will almost certainly cause structural damage
to buildings," the Meteorological Office said.
Forecasts
of up to 3 inches of rain for exposed areas have heightened fears
of a repeat of October's flooding.
The warnings
came hot on the heels of the launch of the Environment Agency's
new Web site, "Flood Maps On-Line" found at www.environment-agency.gov.uk.
Autumn 2000
has been the wettest since records began in 1766.
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