Severe storm hits Sittingbourne, Gravesend and Teynham very badly; A2 between Newington and Rainham under a lot of water, UK

Some parts of Kent have been affected by flooding as yet another powerful storm hit the county.

 

Forecasters at the Met Office have issued a yellow alert for thundery, heavy downpours until midnight on Sunday as temperatures remain high. 

 

The Environment Agency has issued flood alerts for two areas as waters rise.

 

Sittingbourne, Gravesend and Teynham appear to have been particularly badly affected while drivers reported the A2 between Newington and Rainham under a lot of water.

 

In Lower Road and London Road in Teynham water levels reached the wheel arches of cars and started seeping into people’s homes.

 

The A249 at Key Street Roundabout had to be closed, which is believed to have been due to flooding in the underpass, causing long tailbacks in both directions.

 

Bill Smith’s back garden in Glovers Crescent, Sittingbourne, was inundated with runoff from Bell Road.

 

He said: “It happens every time there’s a heavy downpour and we’re fed up with it. There were manholes blowing off the road further up.” 

Peter Pethers, manager of the Summoner in Sittingbourne High Street, said: “There was a massive downpour running through the [Bell] shopping centre and it immediately started to gather in the side entrance to the pub. We have secured that area. 

 

“We swept most of the water away. It was just like a flash flood. It came down in seconds. The road outside was a river. It’s all drained away now.”

 

Kent County Council’s road safety team urged drivers to be careful heading out onto the roads this evening, while the Kent Police’s roads policing unit tweeted advice.

 

Julie Henderson, barmaid at The Stumble Inn, Chalkwell Road, Sittingbourne, said water could be seen bubbling up through a drain on St Paul’s Street nearby causing bad traffic in the surrounding area.

 

She said: “It was pretty bad. They shut the road off down by Morrisons [Mill Way]. The drains couldn’t keep up with the water.”

 

Alice Wong, the owner of The George and New Territories in London Road, Teynham, said: “A little bit came in so I put something in the door to block it. It was bad in the afternoon but it’s all gone now.”

Sean Bone-Knell from Kent Fire and Rescue Service said they had seen the ‘extremes of weather’ over the past few weeks.

 

“Again with the forecast we can see both ends of the scale,” he said.

 

“We’ve had the hot weather and now we’ve got downpours. We’ve seen lots of flash flooding across Kent and people who live in areas that are susceptible to this should take the necessary precautions. 

 

“But it’s also when people are driving. There can be some extremely hazardous driving conditions when roads that have been very dry suddenly get very wet. This can make the road surface very greasy and can cause accidents.”

 

The Environment Agency has issued flood warnings this afternoon.

 

It highlights possible issues on Sheppey with Scrapsgate Drain from the B2008 to the sea, through Minster and Scrapsgate and the Warden Bay Drain from Bay View to the sea, including Warden and surrounding holiday villages

 

In Ashford, it is possible levels in the Whitewater Dyke, Ruckinge Dyke and Aylesford Stream will rise and cause flooding to low-lying land.

 

Forecasters have predicted up to 30mm of rain could fall in an hour during particularly heavy downpours.

 

Lightning, large hail stones and strong gusts of wind are expected during the remainder of the day. 

 

The Met Office said: “Significant flooding is possible from surface water as well as from small, fast-responding watercourses.”

 

The Environment Agency warned some drainage systems might not be able to cope with the intense rainfall, and teams are out clearing watercourses in preparation.

Barry Russell, Environment Agency operations manager, said: “We are doing all we can to prepare for the heavy rainfall, which increases the risk of surface water flooding.

 

“We are monitoring the situation closely and supporting local councils, who will respond to any reports of surface water flooding.

 

“The intense nature of the rainfall which causes surface water flooding makes it very difficult to accurately predict where it will occur, so I would urge people to check local weather forecasts and the gov.uk website for information on a regular basis.”

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Severe storms & tornado causes devastation & leaves two dead on French campsites

Violent storms wreaked havoc across France on Sunday leaving two people dead, including one person who was killed when a mini-tornado ripped through a campsite in the Ardeche department of south-central France

The tornado hit a campsite in the town of Saint-Just-d’Ardeche, pulling down trees and destroying caravans and tents on Sunday afternoon.

A 42-year-old Frenchman died when a tree fell on him as the tornado hit. Five others were left injured although their conditions are not believed to be life-threatening.

Captain François Degrange, from the local police told AFP that trees had been brought down over a three to four kilometer radius.

“I have never seen that in my career before,” he said.

In a separate incident a woman was also killed by a falling tree at a campsite at Saint-Paulet-de-Caisson in the neighbouring Gard department.

According to Midi-Libre newspaper a baby was also injured as the storms hit and had to be rushed to hospital.

Hundreds of campers in the region have had to be evacuated.

Nine departments in eastern France remained on alert for storms on Sunday evening, while other areas of north eastern France were on alert for heavy rain and floods.

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Huge landslide kills 10 and seriously injures 19 in Southern China

China super typhoon toll reaches 17, storm expected to worsen

The death toll from the strongest storm to hit China in decades has reached 17, state media said today, as forecasters issued warnings of more extreme weather.Typhoon Rammasun has left eight people dead in the island province of Hainan and another nine in Guangxi, official news agency Xinhua reported.

At least two people are missing, Xinhua added citing local authorities, as the strongest typhoon to hit south China since 1973 headed north.

State media said last evening that eight people had been killed in the storm.

Television pictures today showed waterlogged roads and heavy rain in the southwestern province of Yunnan. Online pictures showed uprooted trees, destroyed crops and deserted, rain-soaked streets across much of southern China.

The typhoon first made landfall in China on Friday afternoon as a super typhoon, packing winds exceeding 200 kilometres an hour.

Weather authorities in China issued a “red” alert warning for Rammasun yesterday—the most severe of China’s four colour-code warnings.

But the storm has since been downgraded “as it is abating and affecting fewer Chinese localities”, Xinhua added.

All the airports on Hainan had re-opened on Sunday, as ferry, rail and bus services resumed, it said.

Meanwhile, China’s National Meteorological Centre was warning that downpours triggered by the typhoon were expected in northern parts of China in the coming days.

Rammasun—meaning “Thunder God” in Thai—has caused at least 94 deaths in the Philippines, where it hit before lashing China.

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Four houses destroyed by fire and lightning as the weekend’s thunderstorms wrecked havoc across Britain

Four homes have been destroyed by lightning and razed by fire as thunderstorms bulldozed their way across the country this weekend.

 

The homes were either damaged directly by bolts of lightning or set on fire by lightning strikes on Saturday and Sunday.

 

Remarkably, all the homes were empty when the fires and lightning struck.

Two families away on holiday had a miraculous escape when their Gloucestershire homes were destroyed in separate lightning strikes.

 

Emergency services dealing with the fallout from the thunderstorms arrived to find both homes had been hit on the roof.

 

One of the houses, in Hardwicke, was struck in the early hours of Saturday morning, with the lightning bolt destroying the roof and falling debris crushing a nearby Honda Jazz.

 

Craig Smith, a neighbour, said: ‘I saw an almighty flash and mortar flying up in the air. They are a lovely family and they’ll be gutted when they get home.

 

‘I’m just glad they weren’t home when it all happened. It happened so close to our house that I just can’t fathom it.’

 

Another neighbour said she felt the earth shake and heard the car alarm go off and the owner of the car shout ‘oh my god’ when the bolt struck.

 

Twenty miles away, in Ampney Crucis, near Cirencester, a house was struck on Saturday afternoon as the huge storm swept across the Cotswold.

 

The bolt, as well as destroying the roof, started a major fire in the upper levels of the house, which destroyed the loft and gutted the upper floors.

 

 

Meanwhile, a bungalow in Solihull, West Midlands, was completed gutted by a fire sparked by a bolt of lightning and fueled by a burst radiator in the early hours of Saturday morning.

 

Taking to their Twitter account, Solihull Fire said the intense heat caused a radiator to explode forcing crews to withdraw for safety.

 

‘This is the danger crews faced when entering in breathing apparatus to fight the fire & search the property. Intense heat caused explosion forcing crews to withdraw for safety, later found to be this radiator on the 1st floor.’

 

A neighbour, who didn’t want to be named, said one of the firefighters said they believed it was caused by a lightning strike.

 

‘We don’t see what else it could be because the property is empty so nobody would have been there.’

 

In South Yorkshire, forks of lightning rained down on a family home, engulfing it in fire early Saturday evening.

 

A neighbour said: ‘I saw it all happen. It took about fifteen minutes from when the lightning hit for the house to catch on fire.

 

‘I’ve never witnessed anything like it. I got in and I thought “wow that was close”. There was an almighty blue ball of flash and we started rushing around the house turning everything off.

 

‘What people didn’t see was the terror on people’s faces. There was just a huge bang and the blue flash was unbelievable. I’ve not seen anything like it in my life and I’ve done a lot of travelling in my time.

 

‘The emergency services actually went in and rescued the goldfish. The whole fire crew were absolutely fantastic and everyone in the street worked together.’

 

Homeowner Richard Lowe said the family were still coming to terms with the damage.

 

‘I’m still in shock,” he said.’But no one has been hurt and things can be replaced. Family will be putting us up.’

 

 

The stormy weather caused travel disruption at London’s Heathrow Airport on Saturday as airlines were forced to cancel 20 per cent of flights for a two-hour period, while up to 1.2in (30mm) an hour fell in some places – more than the average monthly rainfall for the whole of July.

 

It comes after a heatwave struck the country late last week, causing tropical-like thunderstorms that brought the heavy rainfall and flooding.

 

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Downpour and hail hit the Black sea again, dead fish cover the field

After the flood in Varna that killed 11 this summer and the recent storm in Primorsko, the Bulgarian Black sea shore was hit by yet another downpour and hail storm on Saturday afternoon, this time in Bourgas.

 

Pits were spewing water like geysers, and the flood reached up to the knees.

A tree also collapsed and to the horror of a dozen people – staff and customers of a restaurant, the tree fell right on them. Fortunate that no one was hit, commented firefighters arriving on the scene.

 

At the same time, hail hit the city center. Just one month after the unprecedented flood in Varna’s  “Asparuhovo” a scary downpour again flooded the streets of a Bulgarian seaside capital.

 

Due to the torrential rain that poured a few days ago on the southern part of Bulgaria’s Black sea shore,  private fish lake near the village Vesselie flooded and spread the surrounding fields with tons of fish. Consequently, thousands of carp,  and roach thrashed dry after the wave has passed, tell the locals. Some of the fish was taken by the flood to the sea- which is a death penalty for the animals living in freshwater.

 

The rumor of the ”free fish” spread within minutes and thousands of people were heading to the scene to collect them for dinner.

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Fatal Plane Crash Kills 3 People in Essex Co, USA

New York State Police are investigating a fatal plane crash in Essex County.

Officials said the single engine plane crashed in the town of North Elba around 10:40 a.m. on Saturday. The three people that were on the plane died.

Officials said the plane burst into flames upon impact.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash.

The Lake Placid police and fire departments, as well as the Saranac Lake Fire Department and state police are assisting in the investigation.

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