WORST FLOOD FOR 184 YEARS

Grey River Argus, 22 March 1947, Page 5

WORST FLOOD FOR 184 YEARS

LONDON, March 20.

The flood situation in Britain is more critical as water continues to surge through breaches in river banks, rushes on to more towns and villages and swamps new acres of c pen country. Every county in England and Wales, except parts of Kent, is affected by snow, floods, or fallen trees. More than 3000 roads are impassable in places. The Severn Catchment Board stated: “It is the worst flood in memory and is still rising.”

The Thames, under a sunny sky to-day, is now almost everywhere well above the record levels reached in the black winter of 1894, all commemorative marks of which have been submerged. The greatest flood before 1894 was in 1763.

More rain generally is forecast. The position in many parts of the Thames valley and East Anglia is critical. The struggle to keep the weirs in the upper reach of the Thames free of debris has become most hazarduous.

In the Trent- valley, Army amphibians, after racing 200 miles from Aidershot through the night, began rescue operations at Bentley village, where local Hoods have risen to danger point. Mr. E. Walkden, the local member of the House .of Commons, received a telegram from the Bentley Council saying that 1000 people had been isolated and were foodless for 24 hours.

Mr. Walkden late to-night saw Cabinet Ministers, and as a result the War Office sent amphibians. A 10ft wave poured over the bank of the Great Ouse at Earith, in Huntingdonshire. Sappers and German prisoners with the aid of searchlights are desperately trying to prevent the breach widening.

It is estimated that more than 100 square miles of the Fen country is under water.

Rising rivers are the Severn at Worcester and Shrewbury, the Derwent, in Yorkshire, and the Wye at Hereford. The Dee is also in full flood and is still rising.