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Thousands stranded by floods spend night in shelters in England

51 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - Thousands of people awoke Saturday in make-shift shelters in southern and central England after abandoning their cars on flooded highways or leaving trains disrupted by torrential rains.

Exceptionally heavy rains on Friday forced dozens of people to climb to rooftops and await rescue by helicopter, left hundreds of homes without electricity and caused flight cancellations.

Three Royal Air Force helicopters have rescued more than 40 people but still have to evacuate another dozen, including a man clinging to a lamppost in flood water and people stuck on roofs, emergency services said.

The RAF base at Kinloss, in Scotland, helped evacuate 60 people from Sedgeberrow in Worcestershire who were stranded after the River Isbourne burst its banks.

Holidaymakers were also airlifted to safety from caravan parks near the river in Evesham, between Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

Many motorists were stranded in the southwestern areas of Worcester and Gloucester. Some were forced to remain in their vehicles overnight and others chose to abandon their cars.

In Gloucestershire, around 2,000 people spent Friday night in emergency shelters after being forced from their cars or homes due to the flooding.

Police said that people were now starting to leave the county council run centres as the waters receded.

Passengers were on Friday night asked to leave trains at Oxford and Banbury, with many of them forced to sleep at a school in north Oxford. Trains were unable to stop at Didcot station because of flooding.

"We've ordered 150 sleeping bags from the army and some of my staff have gone down to the local Tesco to get things like towels, toothpaste and soap," said John Kelly, Oxfordshire's county emergency planner.

"This is not the first choice of school, because the one we were going to had actually been flooded itself," he said.

At Bampton in the west of Oxfordshire more than 300 homes flooded and 1,200 left without power.

Police said Friday night they were preparing for up to 100 residents to spend the night at nearby council offices.

Helen Rossington, of MeteoGroup UK, the weather division of the Press Association news agency, said "average rainfall for the whole of July is about 35 milimetres (1.4 inches).

"But some places have had as much as 85 milimetres (3.5 inches) in a few hours," Rossington said.

Some 140 flights leaving from and arriving to London's Heathrow Airport were cancelled because of the rains on Friday, and travellers were being re-issued tickets on Saturday, an airport spokesman said.

The spokesman said flights were running normally on Saturday.

Some of the country's television stations briefly went off the air as satellite signals were disrupted, while computers jammed in offices.

Thousands stranded by floods spend night in shelters in England (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070721/wl_uk_afp/britainweather;_ylt=ArzMtmmDFZ30VRmwmV57R2pvaA8F)