An incredible shot of the flooding around around Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, England (Stephen Hird/Reuters). It's even scarier when you click and enlarge it.
Heavy Floods Inundate Britain, Texas and China.
Flood waters caused misery, cut essential services and forced evacuations in widely spaced parts of the globe today, including southwest England, Texas and Asia.
Thousands of people were forced from their homes in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire in western England after a month of heavy rain forced the rivers Thames and Severn out of their banks and into neighborhoods. More than 48,000 homes in those areas were without electricity as the flooding closed a power plant.
Clean water supplies were also threatened as water plants were inundated and more rain was in the forecast.
The country’s Environmental Agency warned that water could rise to a “critical level” in the affected areas and issued nine severe flood warnings for different regions. People in the areas covered by the warnings were advised to evacuate their homes.
“The situation is looking critical at the moment,” a spokesman for the agency said. “Unfortunately, the misery is set to continue.”
In south and central Texas, the floods began receding after 17 inches of rain fell in some areas over the weekend. Helicopters were used to rescue dozens of people isolated by flooded roads. An Amtrak train was stopped about 75 miles west of San Antonio after rising water covered the tracks.
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In Asia, the monsoon rains produced the usual floods, landslides, evacuations and loss of life. In China alone, more than 150 people were reported to have died in the last week and 3 million were displaced across vast tracts because of the heavy rain.
The usual? Inured to disaster, are we?
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