Three people have died in Britain after heavy rainfalls caused severe flooding in large parts of the country,leaving people stranded in buildings and causing major disruption to the road and rail network, police said early Tuesday, according to dpa. Another 10 centimetres of rain were expected to fall over the next 24 hours, forecasters said. A 28-year-old man died in the port city of Hull, in north-east Britain, as he attempted to clear a blocked drain. In Sheffield, in northern Britain, a 68-year-old pensioner drowned as he got out of his car and a 13-year-old boy was swept away by floods near a playground. His body was later found. Torrential rainfalls and gales swept large parts of northern Britain Monday, with the counties of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire worst affected. Police said three people were rescued by helicopter from the canteen of a factory building in Sheffield late Monday. Reports said cars were floating through the flooded streets of Sheffield and the picture was similar in the nearby city of Leeds, in Yorkshire, where a central underground car park was completely flooded and people who had abandoned their cars were housed in emergency accommodation. There has been major disruption to road and rail traffic as railway tracks were flooded and motorways water-logged. Hundreds of homes in the affected areas, which reached down to the county of Gloucestershire in the south-west and into Wales, were evacuated and schools closed. The authorities in South Yorkshire declared the situation a "major incident" while in Lincoln, World War II sirens were sounded to warn people of the danger. This month has been described as the wettest June since 1873, when records began.
