Heavy rainfall causes car accident
It has been revealed that the weekend storms and flash floods have caused a horrific car accident.
Two women were killed when their car crashed in heavy downpour, after Britain fell victim to torrential rain.
They died at the scene when the Vauxhall Corsa they were in careered off the road and hit a tree.
The news comes after a policeman died in Cumbria, whilst he was trying to control traffic on a bridge that collapsed due to the terrible weather.
Atrocious conditions across the UK left at least two others feared dead, and communities spent yesterday counting the expense of the devastating floods.
Police appealed for witnesses to Saturday's car crash, which happened on the B6369 Haddington to Gifford country road in East Lothian shortly before 6pm.
Emergency crews were helped at the scene by two local doctors and a passing nurse but they could not save the women. A third was rushed to hospital in Edinburgh with serious personal injuries to her chest and leg.
The extreme weather this weekend has claimed more lives in the Scottish region than in any other part of Great Britain.
Emergency services warned that Calva Bridge in Workington, which has sunk by a foot, could collapse at any time. Its closure cut off the north of the town and outlying villages.
Churches offered prayers for the family of the policeman who died, after he disappeared on Friday when the town's Northside Bridge collapsed. Canon Bryan Rowe said: “The whole community is hurting. We are isolated.”
The north-east suffered the worst from the downpours, where many individuals were evacuated from their homes. Coastguard teams were also called to help with the evacuations.
A Grampian Police spokesman said “every single road” in Aberdeenshire was affected by flooding after more than an inch and a half of rain fell in the 12 hours from 6am to 6pm.
He commented: “I would be surprised if there are any roads across Aberdeenshire where cars have not been stuck or run into problems.”
A spokeswoman for Grampian Fire and Rescue Service said it received more than 100 calls because of the flooding and was concentrating its efforts around Stonehaven after the River Carron burst its banks.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) issued a flood warning on the River Earn in Tayside, and flood watches on the Dee, Bervie and Don rivers, the Tay and its tributaries and Highland and lowland Angus rivers.
Devastating weather
The floods have not only caused road accidents. In Wales, a search was launched for a woman believed to have been swept into the River Usk in Brecon on Saturday night.
Helicopters, specialist units and dog handlers joined the hunt for the 21-year-old, who fell into the swollen waters during a night out with her boyfriend.
In Devon, an experienced 46-year-old canoeist died after becoming trapped under his boat on a swollen river. He was pinned against a tree on the River Dart near Ashburton on Saturday.
Two friends fought in vain to free him, and tried to keep his head above water. But the chartered surveyor from Reading was dead by the time a rescue team got to the scene, which was not accessible by road.
Updated on 23/11/2009