Britain Badly Hit By Autumn Floods

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 13

Britain Badly Hit By Autumn Floods

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, September 16. A week-end of monsoon-like autumn rain has left south-east England a wasteland of floods, hundreds of people homeless and a fortune in crops lost to farmers. Six counties with a 100-mile front have been hit by the worst floods experienced in Britain for 15 years.

Royal Air Force helicopters rescued scores of stranded families and individuals from buildings and hillsides, and Army boats sailed through the waterlogged streets of many towns as troops helped to search for victims in distress.

Early reports do not speak of deaths or serious casualties, but at least two people are known to be missing after being swept off the roof of their car by the flood torrent of a swollen river. The floods came in a weekend of whirlwinds, lightning and landslides which cut road and rail links. Crops awaiting harvest on the rich farmlands of the south-east were wiped out. Cereal losses in the flood area are unofficially estimated at between 10 and 25 per cent of the whole crop—in cash terms, equivalent to at least £2sm. Stock losses are also said to be high. Hundreds of dead sheep have been seen floating on the sea of dirty water swirling through villages and market towns. In Tilbury, at the mouth of the River Thames, hundreds of people awakened to find the ground floors of their houses under water. They were taken to emergency accommodation. Train Stranded The picturesque town of Edenbridge, south of London, was devastated by a “tidal wave” from the River Eden, which smashed windows and shop doors.

Police who rescued 75 townspeople said: “Edenbridge has had the heart torn out of it.”

About 80 passengers were marooned on a train at Edenbridge after the line had been flooded by five feet of flood waters. As darkness fell, a Whirlwind helicopter of the R.A.F.’s Air-Sea Rescue Service brought in food and hot drinks and rescued all the passengers.

The Army ordered 10 assault craft to Edenbridge. The counties of Essex, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset were all hit. Kent was the worst affected, and the member of Parliament for the commuter town of Orpington (Mr Eric Lubbock) sent an urgent request to the Government for troops to help the civil authorities. In France, the Riviera was a scene of desolation early to-

day as torrential rain swept the area for the third successive night. The total damage now runs into millions of pounds as firemen, police and rescueworkers toil without stopping to clear the area. So far the storms in France have claimed one victim, a 59-year-old cyclist who was killed in Toulon by a fallen

high-tension cable. A Viscount jet airliner on an internal flight had to be re-routed from Toulon to Nice after it had been struck by lightning. Transport has been crippled by the storms. Roads are unusable, train services have been disrupted and abandoned cars litter the flooded streets.