Flooding Forces Convening Of UK Emergency Committee W. PM Brown - AFP

[hatrack]

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's emergency contingencies committee met Monday night to discuss further measures to combat the worst flooding in 60 years, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown linked to climate change.

Large swathes of central and western England were submerged as rivers swelled and burst their banks during four days of heavy and persistent rain, leaving thousands without clean water or electricity and facing the prospect of more rain.

There was some good news, however, as water levels appeared to have peaked below a level which would have flooded a power station servicing half a million homes.

The largely rural counties of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire were the worst hit, forcing Royal Air Force (RAF) helicopters to evacuate around 150 people in its biggest-ever peacetime rescue. Britain's COBRA government emergency planning committee met Monday evening and was chaired by Environment Secretary Hilary Benn amid concerns that an electricity sub-station in Gloucester would be flooded.

EDIT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070724/wl_afp/britainweather_070724002625;_ylt=ApQv3iYNkgXZii510q98xr1rAlMA

[aquart]

1. Farms underwater in growing season?

And this is just the beginning.

[Greeby]

2. As a side note

What braintrust decided that the organisation set up to help people be given the sinister-sounding name of COBRA? :shrug: