Hundreds of flood warnings and sub-alerts remain in place across Wales and England on Monday morning, despite the weekend's rain and winds brought by Storm Bert having eased.
Mainly in south Wales, where in 48 hours rain fell equivalent to 80% of the amount that usually falls during the whole of November, many rivers overflowed. As a result, main roads, railway lines and thousands of houses and shops were flooded.
Even a small amount of rain today is a concern for areas where the ground is saturated and river levels are higher than usual.
According to the data so far, four people lost their lives due to the storm. A man in his 60s was killed when a tree crushed his vehicle, two more people died in road accidents and a 75-year-old man was swept away by a torrent while walking his dog.
Significant problems continue to exist on the rail network today, due to accumulated water, broken tree branches and large amounts of leaves that have fallen onto the tracks. Dozens of routes have been canceled and in many parts of the network low speed is imposed on the wires.
Dozens of flights were also canceled over the weekend, many ferry routes, parks closed due to winds measured at 130mph and up to 30.000 households without electricity.
Residents of the affected areas in south Wales are declaring exile with the authorities. As they say, in 2020 they were again damaged by floods, with the effects then being more intense. They believe that the weekend's problems could have been avoided with proper flood control projects which have not been implemented since then.
They also complain that they did not receive adequate warnings about the severity of the weather, especially the heavy amount of rain.
Welsh devolved government premier Elaine Morgan spoke of an extremely difficult situation, attributing the severity of the weather to climate change.
Source: skai.gr
