Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in northern England on Tuesday as officials warned a dam could collapse following severe flooding that has killed three people.
A 68-year-old man and a teenager died in Sheffield and another man, in his 20s, was killed in Hull as torrential rain brought chaos to much of England and Wales.
Police and local authority officials said they had removed about 250 people from their homes near Rotherham in South Yorkshire after cracks appeared in the Ulley Dam.
”For the people in the area concerned, those who need to be moved have been,” Chief Superintendent Matthew Jukes, the police commander for Rotherham, told BBC radio.
He said it was difficult to tell if the wall would collapse.
”The situation is really not getting any better and not getting any worse fortunately,” he said.
”It does have some cracks in it and there is just a steady flow of water at the moment which we’re quite able to deal with in terms of the emergency response.”
Structural engineers were working to shore up the dam and pump out water from a reservoir.
”The water, if it escapes, will run into a valley area but would fairly rapidly spread out,” chief executive of Rotherham council Mike Cuff told BBC Radio.
”It would reach the M1 motorway and it would then spread out to the areas we think that would be most affected. If the dam should burst we would be talking in terms of maybe 15 minutes or so before water would reach residential areas.”
The Highways Agency said it had closed the M1 in South Yorkshire because of the flooding.
People in the Sheffield area were advised not to travel unless they had to. Police said the situation was exceptional and council leaders said the unprecedented rainfall had caused millions of pounds of damage.
Weather forecasters predicted conditions would improve on Tuesday after the torrential downpours that killed three people.
A man died after in Hull after becoming trapped clearing a flooded drain. He had gone to help his grandfather but slipped and became pinned back by a torrent of water.
Police in South Yorkshire said Ryan Joe Parry (14) had died after being swept away by surging waters of the River Sheaf in Sheffield.
Later they said a 68-year-old man had died after getting swept away in a torrent after he got into difficulties trying to cross a Sheffield street.
The Environment Agency has issued severe flood warnings, which caution of imminent danger to life and property, for more than 20 areas, mainly in the Humberside, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire districts.
Numerous lesser flood warnings were also in place across the country. — Reuters