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Britain calls crisis meeting over floods in north

Sunday, 06 December 2015 1:45 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 06 December 2015 1:45 PM ]

Britain's emergency response committee has formed an urgent meeting to study the situation in northern areas affected by floods.

Heavy floods in Britain’s northern regions on Sunday forced the country’s emergency response committee to call an urgent meeting to study the situation in affected areas.

The meeting was called after prolonged heavy rain caused widespread flooding in northwest England and forced emergency services to evacuate residents from their homes.

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," Reuters reported.

Reports say 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.

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 mobilised to help those affected.

Britain's national weather service, the Met Office, said in one of the worst affected areas 201.8 millimetres (7.94 inches) of rain had fallen on Saturday - only slightly below the 215 mm usually seen during the whole of December. Gusts of wind reached 90 miles per hour, a spokesman said.

The worst of the storm responsible for the flooding, named 'Desmond' by the Met office, had passed according to forecasters but more wet weather was expected in coming days.

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