Health fears as UK flood victims go without clean water

Britain’s deluge-stricken communities are facing another day of chaos today as they await the painfully slow fall of the floodwaters.

And with more than 340,000 people facing the prospect of no clean water at home for up to two weeks, there are growing fears about sanitation and health.

The Environment Agency (EA) said river levels in the affected areas were generally “steady and high” and would probably remain so until tomorrow at least.

An EA spokeswoman said: “It is going to take a long time to go down because there is a lot of water. The water is reaching its high point, then very gradually it is going to go down.”

Forecasters are predicting sunshine and showers across much of England and Wales today, with thunder possible in the North and West.

The Met Office will hold a briefing today at which scientists will try to explain why the UK has been experiencing such extraordinary weather.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his second visit to flood-stricken areas yesterday, praising emergency workers who battled to save a vital electricity station.

Dressed in a smart suit and sensible black shoes, he managed to stay on dry land as he saw the devastation first hand, touring the electricity substation at Walham in Gloucestershire where hundreds of emergency workers have spent days valiantly keeping the site dry.

It provides electricity to half a million homes and would have brought even more chaos to the area if it had shut down.

But a combination of temporary defences, sandbags and the continual pumping of water protected the substation until water levels from the River Severn subsided.

Earlier Mr Brown announced that the relief package for the flooding in Yorkshire and Humberside – as well as the continuing crisis – would rise to £46m (€63m).

People in Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and Gloucester are being forced to rely on bowsers and bottled water.

The crisis in supply was sparked by the flooding of Mythe water treatment works, near Tewkesbury, which normally provides 120 million litres of clean drinking water a day.

Emergency services started pumping water from the site on Tuesday, but engineers have yet to assess the scale of the damage.

Severn Trent Water, which owns the works, said electricity had been restored to part of the plant but warned it would be several days before repairs could be carried out.

The company has set up 926 bowsers across the county which are refilled five times a day, while the Army is helping distribute four million litres of bottled water.

Gloucestershire County Council said it needed more portable toilets for emergency workers and vulnerable people trapped in care and residential homes.

Red Cross hygiene kits – filled with toiletries, sanitary items and bottled water – were handed out across flooded Gloucester.

Much of the west of Oxford was engulfed yesterday after Thames tributaries burst their banks, spilling on to the river’s already water-logged flood plain.

The EA said 125 of 150 people evacuated from homes in the city’s worst-hit areas, Botley and Osney, remained overnight at a refuge centre at Oxford United’s Kassam stadium.

Nearly a week after the rain deluge across central and southern England, the EA said six severe flood warnings and 20 flood warnings remained in place.

Three of the severe warnings are along the Severn and three on the Thames.