Flood death toll reaches four

12 April 2012

Britain has been battered by more storms as the death toll from two days of relentless rain rose to four.

A 17-year-old girl on holiday in Wales, a motorcyclist travelling through North Yorkshire and a young couple from Plymouth all died in treacherous conditions on the roads.

A busy sporting calendar was brought to a standstill, while several rivers burst their banks as seven severe flood warnings were issued by the Environment Agency .

In the village of Kirkley Mill, Northumberland, an RSPCA emergency team, called out to help some horses, found themselves rescuing a baby trapped in a car.

Spokeswoman Katie Geary said: "The horses were fine but when we got there we found a couple trying to get their baby out of a car. The door had been jammed - they were very relieved we were able to help."

Cumbria, Durham, Newcastle and North Yorkshire were among the worst-hit areas, an EA spokeswoman said.

She added: "The majority of the warnings are in the North East, where they have got a serious amount of rain battering down on them. The rain is moving very slowly so it could be sustained for a good few hours. It is very hard to say whether this situation will get worse or better."

The 17-year-old girl, who died when the 4x4 she was in plunged into floodwater in a remote area of forestry in Powys, Mid Wales, was holidaying with "companions" from south-east England, police said.

Earlier, a man and a woman - named locally as Barry Rowe and Rebecca Hoynes - died when their vehicle collided with a tree. The accident happened in Embankment Road, Plymouth, in heavy rain.

Details later emerged of a 42-year-old Sheffield man killed when the Kawasaki motorbike he was riding hit a tree branch on the A66 near Scotch Corner on Friday afternoon.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in